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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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A GINGHAM ROSE 




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A GINGHAM 
ROSE 


By 

ALICE WOODS ULLMAN 


WITH A FRONTISPIECE 
BY THE AUTHOR 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright 1904 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 

April 


\ 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Coolos Received 

APR 25 1904 

Copyright Entry 
T-TV/ Cf0Lh 

CLASS CL XXo. No. 

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COPY A 1 


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PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
BROOKLYN, N. Y. 


TO 

MY MOTHER 




A GINGHAM ROSE 


CHAPTER I 

Hey, rose, just bom, 

Twin to a thorn. 

— Sidney Lanier. 

Two girls and two young men were standing 
on the stair-landing of a New York boarding- 
house, their heads close together, and chattering 
like magpies. The occasion was more important 
than serious. There was to be a bal masque that 
very night and the final details must be ar- 
ranged. The dance was to close the spring term 
of the New York School of Art with a frolic 
that should deftly tend to make return irre- 
sistible. 

“Let’s walk; it’s only six blocks. We’ll save 
the cab-hire for another lark.” The practical 
suggestion came from one of the girls; a tall, 
slim, boyish sort of girl she was, with blue eyes, 
a clear skin that the color played over as the 
1 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


weather-vane points the breeze, and a quantity 
of smooth black hair, which she wore daringly in 
two long braids. 

“Lovely!” chuckled the other girl, hugging 
Anne’s arm. “You always have the right idea 
about things, Nancy.” 

' “Um-m,” commented Anne; “think so, 
Ruthy?” She bestowed a patient smile on the 
top of Ruth’s fluffy yellow head. 

“Are you girls sure you won’t mind walking in 
your party togs?” asked Victor Stetson, a tall, 
stoop-shouldered fellow with a thin, attractive 
face that was written all over with admiration 
for whatever the black pigtails and blue eyes 
wanted to do. 

The braids tossed. “We can go to a theater 
for the price of a cab.” That settled the matter, 
and Ruth decided to endure the walk with a 
smile. 

The other young man was a medical student 
who lived in their boarding-house and had been 
asked to go along with them to the dance. Anne 
had dubbed him the Man-eater. “Be ready on 
time?” he asked with a glance at his watch, as 
the two girls started upstairs. Ruth hurried 
2 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


away, but Anne cast a glance of amused scorn 
over her shoulder and proceeded deliberately to 
her room. 

The still-life studio had been turned over to 
the girls for a dressing-room. The copper pots 
and kettles, bits of brass, scarlet peppers and 
satin-coated onions were put upon the shelf and 
forced out of focus by the presence of mirrors 
and make-up stuffs. 

“Now, Vic,” said Anne at the dressing-room 
door when they arrived, “you two go in as soon as 
you are ready and don’t bother waiting for us. 
If we go in by ourselves they won’t guess us so 
easily.” 

“Anybody ’d know you anywhere,” said Vic- 
tor, trying to cover his anxiety to be seen by all 
the world taking Anne into the room. 

“Well, goosey,” she laughed, “that’s no reason 
why they need to know you too, is it?” 

Victor threw up his hands, and with a half- 
hurt gaze disappeared. 

Two big studios had been thrown together, the 
partition being portable for just such occasions. 
One end of the room was cut off by a row of box- 
wood and cedar trees in tubs, and the inclosed 
3 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


space filled with tables and chairs, and lighted 
with Japanese lanterns. “For the distribution 
of rations and the furtherance of intrigue,” the 
committee announced, and certainly the corner 
served faithfully both its destinies. After some 
discussion it had been decided to put all the 
funds into “rations” and, except for the strings 
of Jap lanterns across the big skylights, to let 
the artistic atmosphere of the place be its own 
decoration. 

However, some one got in at the last moment 
and dressed up the old stove. The chest in the 
costume-class studio was burglarized and a pair 
of old pink satin stays and a tulle skirt were 
stretched about the iron ribs to the limit of their 
capacity. Slippers were put on the three claw 
feet, two drawn back and the other pulled as far 
forward as possible, till the old stove seemed 
about to reel off in a highland fling. A face was 
painted on the coal-bucket and a picture hat tied 
on top. The whole effect was fairly simpering. 
The fiddlers, selected for cheapness and endur- 
ance, were enthroned on a model stand. Boys and 
girls in all sorts of garb and masks floated about 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


the big place incongruously, the color and move- 
ment kaleidoscopic, fascinating. 

Anne was vivid in the rich, warm light of the 
place, the excitement like wine to her. She wore 
a dress of pink that threw a flush over her white 
skin and made her look like a big fresh rose. 
“Ruthy,” she whispered, “you never looked so 
pretty. Just like an angel.” 

“Goodness, do IP” laughed Ruth, happily. 
“I was only intended for a butterfly!” 

The Man-eater, lost to identity in a deep pur- 
ple domino and mask, made faithful back- 
ground to Ruth’s golden head, white dress and 
wings. Victor Stetson and John Warren, his 
best friend and Anne’s only rebel in an other- 
wise obedient kingdom of slaves, were to take 
part in a cake-walk and were, accordingly, ver- 
itable masterpieces of plain-spoken stripes and 
beseeching plaids. 

Anne and Ruth were no sooner inside the door 
than they were surrounded by a flock of clowns, 
cavaliers, Chinamen, cowboys, war chiefs and 
princes from all the nations of earth, begging 
for dances. Not one dance ahead would Anne 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


give to any one. “So much more exciting that 
way,” she laughed, and shook her head at Ruth, 
who was hunting a piece of drawing-paper to 
write down her dances. 

Ruth smiled back. “I do wish I had your 
courage. But it would scare me awfully to be a 
wall-flower. Feels so safe to have a lot ahead.” 

“May I have all you have left?” came a voice 
from the depths of the purple domino. 

“Oh, how nice !” gasped Ruth, with a puzzled 
glance at the purple mask, her chin showing very 
pink at the edge of her own white one. 

“Silly,” laughed Anne, with a knowing smile 
at the Man-eater. “Better save some for possi- 
bilities.” And she floated away on the arm of a 
lucky Chinaman, whirling about the big shadowy 
place like a giddy pink cloud that had somehow 
lost its parent sunset. 

“Isn’t she lovely?” sighed Ruth, watching 
Anne. “If it weren’t for her black pigtails I’d 
think we were all wrong about it, and that the 
angels really dress in pink.” 

“ Once I might have agreed with you,” came 
forth in a deep, purple voice, “but now I know 
that the old story is right and that they wear 
6 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


white and have golden hair and no pigtails at 
all. Come, we are losing time!” So the two 
girls went about having a good time, each after 
her own heart and habit. 

Just before the cake-walk, while the partici- 
pants were standing around in dusky groups 
waiting for the signal, Anne suddenly appeared 
before Victor. He was marvelously got up. 

“Really, Victorious, you are a confection!” 
She made him a sweeping bow. He was fairly 
submerged in his make-up. A black false-face, 
a curled-hair wig, a neck-breaking stock, enor- 
mous shoes with white “spats,” and clothes that 
were a dissipation in excess, all topped by a 
wide panama hat of the most conscious irregu- 
larity. The girl came close to him and peered 
curiously into his mask, then putting her hands 
together eagerly, she whispered: “Vic, you deli- 
cious, hideous thing, if you’ll just beat John out 
of that cake, I’ll — Vic, I’ll dance three straight 
dances with you ! Honestly I will !” 

“Is you pestahed in you’ mind, honey chile?” 
drawled Vic, with a lilt that for a moment got 
the better of the girl’s eagerness. Then she 
drew herself up and her blue eyes shone. 

7 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Pm awfully mad at John, Vic; honestly I 
am.” 

“And I am to play second fiddle?” asked Vic- 
tor, with no trace of the “sunny South” in word 
or manner. 

“No, no, not a bit of it ; truly, Vic. I wouldn’t 
use you that way, Vic; you know I wouldn’t. 
Truly, I’m in dead earnest.” 

“You flattah me, Sistah Preston,” said the 
boy, with his elaborately gloved hand over his 
heart. Then he broke into the traditional, ex- 
plosive, minstrel-show laugh and finished off 
with an amazing flap of his shoes. 

“Oh,” chuckled Anne, looking at the shoes, 
“they sound like soggy pancakes!” 

“Eo’ de Lo’d, Miss Anne, ’f you go a-talkin’ 
to me ’bout pancakes I won’t be able to swing a 
foot!” He stood before her with folded arms. 
“How’d Brothah Warren make you mad, chile?” 

Anne laughed to herself and stood looking at 
Victor, as if doubtful whether to tell, but at that 
moment John appeared in the doorway. The 
color rose again and she shrugged her girlish 
shoulders. 

“He called me names,” she smiled; then her 
8 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


face grew so serious that Victor could not tell 
where the joke and earnest began and left off. 

“What!” he shouted in mock horror. “Bro- 
thah Warren called you names!” He made an 
ominous pause while the ridiculous false-face 
grinned stolidly. “I’ll beat him out o’ dat cake 
if it paralyzes all ’f me membahs ! I will indeed, 
Miss Anne.” After another pigeon-wing or two 
he collapsed. “What’ll you do, Miss Anne, ’f 
Brothah Warren wins dat cake?” 

“I’ll get you expelled for disorderly conduct 
and dance those three dances with John — China- 
man!” she finished, laughing. “You villain, let 
go of my braid,” she cried, wheeling just in 
time to save one of her hair-ribbons from the 
envious heathen whose rented pigtail was a pale 
shade by the side of one of hers. She held the 
ribbon in her hand a moment, considering first 
the Chinaman and then Victor, then with a 
crushing look at the yellow heathen and an ador- 
able smile for the black man, she took the scarlet 
ribbon from his stick and tied the pink one on 
instead. 

“Pink is so much more distinguished than 
red,” she said. “Luck to you, Vic,” she whis- 
9 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


pered. “Make little pieces of John; please do, 
please !” 

Victor laughed and swung away, for the sig- 
nal had sounded. Anne ran over and sat by 
Ruth in the midst of a gay group. Victor shuf- 
fled and threw out his chest and handled his feet 
with a dexterity so nearly professional and so 
altogether amusing that all the contestants ex- 
cept one went in for second place with a cheer- 
ful deference to his superiority; but that rose- 
colored hair-ribbon of Anne’s and this last “mis- 
understanding,” which, to his mind, was the most 
unreasonable freak that she had ever been guilty 
of, goaded John to renewed effort. He watched 
his chance, then started a mincing step and held 
it cleverly the length of the studio. Anne’s 
heart went heavy. Victor stood to one side, shuf- 
fling aimlessly and watching behind his grinning 
mask, then, with a glance at the girl who looked 
so bewilderingly like a rose, he followed John 
with the same mincing step, but with a series of 
variations added that made the old place ring 
with applause. 

The cake was easily Victor’s and was pre- 
sented by James, — James, whose position has 
10 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


never been defined, but who does everything 
from building fires to arbitrating civil wars, and 
without whom the school could scarcely go on. 
Victor immediately turned and placed the cake, 
with proud humility, on a stool at Anne’s feet. 

“Oh,” she said low, her eyes shining and her 
color high, “we’ll eat every bite of it when we 
get home to-night! You are a wonder, Vic — a 
wonder !” 

Victor placed his feet in line and made an un- 
catalogued bow. “May I have the pleasure of 
the next three dances, Miss Anne?” 

Anne laughed and pointed to his shoes. 

“Take off those freight-cars,” she commanded. 
“I have no wish to be trampled to death;” and 
with a withering look at John Chinaman she 
tied the remaining hair-ribbon in Victor’s button- 
hole. “I’ll wait over there for you; hurry!” 
She gave him a nod and went off with the China- 
man for a glass of punch. 

In a little while Victor and John came back 
to the studio arm-in-arm and looking as fresh 
as though a cake-walk were still undiscovered. 
They crossed the room together and Anne’s dizzy 
head was full of triumph for what she saw was 
11 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


bound to happen. John, as she had devoutly 
hoped he would, stooped over her chair in his 
own charming way and asked for the next dance. 
She was silent, letting the good moment sink in ; 
then with a bright look at Victor, who was stand- 
ing modestly aside, she said sweetly : “Victor has 
the next three dances. They go with the cake !” 

They danced beautifully together and as they 
finished the third dance, Anne said: “Vic, let’s 
go home after this; it’s good enough to stop 
with. Leave me over there by the door where I 
can watch things while you hunt up Ruth and 
the Man-eater. They won’t be hard to find, — 
at least they’ll be together ! Then bring me my 
coat here. I’ll wait; I want to look at things a 
moment. Isn’t it the prettiest sight ever ?” 

Victor, drunk with the conspicuousness of 
having had three dances running with the most 
fascinating girl alive and filled with a convic- 
tion that “the queen can do no wrong,” fell 
smiling into the trap. He had no more than 
left the studio when John appeared before Anne. 
She looked on him with a vast surprise. 

“Anne,” he began hesitatingly, “I am sorry 
if I made you angry to-night. I honestly didn’t 
12 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


mean to. I was only joking. Really I don’t 
know what I said that you could get into such 
a fuss about.” 

“So much the worse for you!” she answered 
with her chin in the air. 

“But you aren’t being fair. Give a fellow a 
chance, can’t you? Tell me what I said and I’ll 
make it right. I know I can because I didn’t 
mean anything.” 

“You said — I was nothing — with all my airs , 
but a — gingham rose!” The hot color flamed 
over her shoulders and face. 

John gazed at her in amazement. 

“But,” and he raised his hands hopelessly, 
“didn’t you tell me yourself your dress was noth- 
ing but gingham? Anybody could tell it was 
intended for a rose. Besides, it doesn’t mean 
anything anyway, does it ?” 

“Well, John, whether you meant anything or 
not, after the mean way you have acted lately” 
— though she bit her lip her eyes filled — “it 
sounded mighty personal!” She moved the toe 
of her slipper along a crack in the floor and kept 
her eyes stubbornly down. 

“But, Nancy” — he bent lower and spoke ear- 

13 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


nestly. At that moment some of the others dis- 
covered that Anne was in the studio and not 
dancing. Such a thing was not to be endured, 
and there began a mad race over the slippery 
floor. John saw and spoke with a sudden mas- 
tery. 

“This is my dance;” and before she knew it 
they were moving smoothly away while the race 
broke, like the bubble it was, and each mask 
rushed instinctively after some other girl. Anne 
and John, in the fascination of music, movement, 
the rhythm of the hour, being still young in 
spite of all their serious differences, forgot the 
storm as easily as if it had all happened a thou- 
sand years before. After an uncounted time, 
Victor appeared in the doorway with Anne’s 
wrap on his arm. They saw him and slowly 
moved across the floor toward him. 

“Is it all right, Anne?” John persisted. 

“Why, yes, for this time,” she hesitated. 

“You know very well I wouldn’t have said 
anything of that sort,” he urged. 

A look, older and too wise, crossed the girl’s 
up-turned face. “Smart people never know any- 
thing in this world,” she smiled. 

14 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


The boy’s arm tightened about her waist. “I 
truly did not think, Anne.” 

“That was just the trouble, John,” she smiled. 
“People always speak the truth when they do 
not stop to think. Good night,” she finished, 
suddenly raising her eyes to his. 

* * * 

The next morning Anne stood before a long 
mirror in her night-dress, combing her hair and 
humming a tune. 

“Sing before breakfast,” quoted Ruth, pull- 
ing the covers high over her ears. 

“Couldn’t cry if I wanted to,” answered Anne, 
looking into her own clear eyes in the mirror as 
she trailed the comb through her black hair, the 
silver gleaming against the dusk of it. She 
went on talking to herself. “Do you know, you 
glass-girl, if it wasn’t for daddie I’d go in for 
regular larks, — I would. I’d about as soon hurt 
Ruth’s feelings, or — anybody’s — except dad- 
die’s. The trouble is that he has real feelings; 
he never told me so — that is why I know. Did 
you know, you glass-girl, that the only things 
that are so are the things you have never been 
told? No use telling that to Ruth, though. 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


She’s awfully young; she’s just a pup, is Ruth! 
You were born to laziness. But I’ll tell you a 
secret, Ruthy. One of these days I’m going to 
have to make my own money. That’s one of the 
things I feel in my bones, you know.” Ruth was 
too sleepy to be alarmed by any idle prophecy 
and made no comment. “I say, my pigtails are 
pretty stunning, aren’t they? I’d be rather 
good-looking if I could just persuade myself to 
go in for growing sideways a while. Miss Sleepy- 
head, wouldn’t it be great never to do one’s hair 
high at all, but to grow up to long-tailed frocks, 
diamond sunbursts, old-young men, and things, 
and stick like ‘Le Page’s Best,’ to pigtails? 
Make a hit, wouldn’t it?” 

“Crazy!” groaned Ruth, sitting up and rub- 
bing the sleep out of her eyes and yawning pro- 
digiously. “Have you got your French ? What 
time is it?” 

“Of course not; — wish you’d drop the ‘got.’ 
Fifteen to eight.” 

“Wish I had your conscience,” sighed Ruth. 

“You’d be lonesome and I’d never miss it.” 
Anne smiled curiously at herself in the glass 
and tied her hair-ribbon with elaborate detail. 

16 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“What are you getting up so early for when 
you have nothing to do for hours?” and Ruth 
blinked solemnly at Anne. 

“Because of that conscience you were wishing 
you had, maybe,” said Anne. “Better hold tight 
to your own and take another nap. I’ll bring 
your breakfast up to you,” she said suddenly, 
her eyes taking Ruth in as if with a new idea. 
She envied Ruth and she was wondering why. 

At about the same hour John Warren was 
brushing his smooth brown hair before a little 
square mirror and resenting the uncomfortable 
morning light. He was wondering if talking 
right out to Anne Preston would bring her to 
see that she was rather careless about certain lit- 
tle things a fellow does not like best in the girls 
he likes best. He wondered what he did, really, 
like best in girls. 

John was ambitious. But he had nearly made 
up his mind to keep away from girls, especially 
Anne. She was an insistent, troublesome kind of 
girl and wouldn’t let any one take things easily. 
He wanted his own hand on the rudder, and no 
one could guess what such a girl would do next. 
Carefully he poured a mug of fresh water over 
17 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


the roots of a scarlet geranium that grew in an 
Indian red crock on his window ledge. He took 
great care, absently, not to spill one drop of 
water. He tweaked off a dry brown leaf with a 
precision fine enough to be almost cruel, then 
stood fingering the leaf and taking in its vein- 
ing. 

His attention to detail was fairly Japanese in 
persistence. All things, no matter how trivial, 
that came beneath his eyes or his sensitive fingers 
were absorbed and made his very own, photo- 
graphed and stored away safely in his suscepti- 
ble brain — a kind and degree of economy certain 
to prove either of great and good use or to lead 
to a sort of egotistical covetousness and self- 
blindness. He glanced out of the window to 
see the kind of day, put his hat on with care, 
ever so little “out of plumb,” — how exquisitely 
the talented sons and daughters of Eve — and 
Adam — dissemble! — and then realized acutely 
that he wanted his breakfast. 


18 


CHAPTER II 


'A good stick is a good reason. 

— Rudyard Kipling. 

An ugly gale off Lake Michigan was driving 
stray bits of paper and stinging venturesome 
humanity to pell-mell speed. The inner voice of 
outspoken Chicago was frozen to a whisper, 
driven to cover like a hunted thing. 

Two young men were swept along on the cur- 
rent, their purpose almost entirely absorbed in 
the very present fight for a footing. They 
turned down a side street, the mad wind taking 
them circle-wise, then plunged down a basement 
stairway into the well of glow and warmth of 
Rector’s, where the gay throng comes and goes, 
God knows how and why, in spite of, or because 
of, the cold and gale outside. The polished 
white marble walls, the tall mirrors, the frosted 
light of the electric globes were all blurred in 
the pinkish gray haze of heat and smoke. There 
were soft-feathered and flowered hats, laces and 
19 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


furs touched richly into strength by the ample 
spotting of men in black. 

“Who was the girl you bowed to, Stetson? 
She seemed glad to see you.” 

“She is glad, bless her. Her name is Preston 
— Anne Preston.” The five years that had gone 
by had, seemingly, but increased the enthusiasm 
and loyalty the boy had felt for the girl. 

Victor Stetson had settled in Chicago and was 
now the art-editor of a fin-de-siecle publication of 
art and literature: the kind of production that 
Chicago’s present state of mental digestion feeds 
on frantically for a day and a night, — then, in 
frenzy of self-disgust, turns on and kills. The 
man with him was of the literary staff. 

“Fine eyes,” remarked the man. “Looks as 
though she might know things. The usual Amer- 
ican bluff?” 

“Not much,” said Victor, emphatically. “She 
can reel off clever stuff in half a dozen mediums 
with a facility that gives a grind like me insom- 
nia. Because it is so easy for her she can’t see 
its value. I knew her first at Chase’s in New 
York, you know. We lived in the same board- 
ing-house two winters; good times, I tell you. 

20 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Nancy must be as much as twenty-two now. Isn’t 
it awful?” he smiled. 

“I have known worse,” laughed the literary 
man, dryly. “Live here?” he asked absently, 
lighting one cigarette at the end of another. 

“Yes, her father was Lambert Preston. He 
was thought to have a lot of money, but I fancy 
things were in a mess when he died. It looks as 
if Anne would have to turn clever in earnest.” 

“Ugly thing to have to do,” and the literary 
man yawned. 

“That’s so,” answered Victor. “But it may 
bring the best of her to the surface. She has a 
little start — writing, you know.” 

The literary man shone with sarcasm. 
“Women all write now. They want something 
to do between times, I suppose.” 

Victor laughed. “You don’t know the girl. 
She could make a go of illustration, but she has 
ideas about it; thinks it a losing, negative kind 
of art. Besides, she knows a lot of illustrators; 
there were no end of clever fellows at Chase’s in 
our day, and she has no illusions about the kind 
of life it is. It’s a dog’s ‘catch and go’ existence 
for a man.” 




A GINGHAM HOSE 


“Any sort of ‘demnition grind’ is hard for a 
woman, isn’t it?” asked the literary man, testily. 
“I wrote a novel about it once, and, if I remember 
rightly, I took that point of view. Maybe it 
was the critics, come to think of it.” He wrin- 
kled his brows. “Whoever it was, that is what I 
think about it. It is so much easier to be windy 
about what you don’t think.” 

“I wish none of ’em had to work,” sighed 
Victor. “But Anne is a funny sort of girl, and 
has more temperament than any man I ever 
knew. Work is the only thing for her. She has 
changed a lot in the last three years, in a vague, 
indefinable sort of way. She is a lonesome little 
beggar ; one gets nowhere near her. She seemed 
to freeze up after her father died. I couldn’t 
stand a square look at her then. Mighty glad 
to see her out again. She likes places of this 
sort just the way a man does. They don’t touch 
her ; she comes because they are comfortable.” 

“Know the man with her?” asked the builder 
of fiction. 

“Never saw him before, but that’s nothing; 
she knows men by the score, and takes them 
about as seriously as she takes her surroundings. 

22 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


He looks professional, doesn’t he? They gener- 
ally are. She says a profession implies having 
thought of being something at least once. She 
always hits it off with clever men, — stupid ones 
too, for the matter of that. She hit me right 
between the eyes. Used to wear her hair in pig- 
tails, has yards of it, fine black, too; trim little 
head and nice jaw, hasn’t she? I never had a 
bit of show in the running; couldn’t hide my 
feelings, and she made fun of me. I’ve rather 
let her be since her father’s death and the 
trouble, for I knew she didn’t feel like making 
fun, and I couldn’t stand her taking me seri- 
ously. She certainly did have us all going to 
any tune she liked — even John Warren.” 

Warren? She knew him? He does good 
work.” 

“I should say he does,” said Victor, with the 
best generosity. “But he was an old youngster, 
so damned opinionated; stubborn as a mule and 
a good deal of a fraud, except in his work. He 
gave Anne an awful snubbing, though I think 
he was rather fond of her, in a way,” he smiled. 
66 Warren is engaged to my cousin, Catherine 
Gage,” he added absently. 

23 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“The deuce he is !” said the literary man, char- 
acteristically crisp. “That is a risky thing. A 
painter is not a domestic animal by birth ; tamed, 
he can’t do his tricks, or won’t ; same result, they 
don’t get done. Women are vampires at the 
throat of a man’s talent, anyway. They ex- 
haust his accidentals and his sparkles ; that’s why 
they like him. Once in a million years there is 
one with more sense. She is really worth the risk. 
If woman there must be, I hope she is that one. 
The man is worth the time it takes to talk about 
him. I like his work, — that is why I think it 
good. Of course, I don’t really know.” He 
grinned at his own expense. 

An attack of ugly coughing kept Stetson 
from answering for a moment. Anne looked 
over her shoulder anxiously. 

“Better take care of that cough,” said the lit- 
erary man, with a keen look at Victor’s sloping 
shoulders and at the new lines about his mouth 
and eyes. “This is the devil’s chosen climate.” 

Victor ignored the diversion and smiled at 
Anne reassuringly. “To be frank,” he contin- 
ued after a moment, “I’ve always been a little 
afraid for Catherine and John. I’ve never talked 
24 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


it over. It’s a family affair, and one doesn’t 
talk things over with one’s family very much. 
The girl has been brought up with a wall about 
her, not even a look outside that I know of, 
except from her aunt’s apron strings, and that 
does not mean scope. She adores John in a piti- 
ful, blind sort of way, but she hasn’t the least 
understanding of his work. She likes ‘stylish 
art.’ In her good little heart, I am nearly sure 
she wishes he’d draw golf-girls and get into Ar- 
mour’s calendars. There is golden prosperity 
in ‘girls,’ you know.” 

“They’d both do well to cut it,” said the man, 
laconically. 

“It’s a bit late to find that out.” 

“The last minute is better than a post-mor- 
tem.” 

“I say, cheer up,” laughed Stetson. “What 
an old croaker you are! It will never come to 
that; they both have common sense.” 

“Common sense is the straightest highway to 
the crossroads,” grunted the literary man. 

Victor looked slightly annoyed. “Anne and 
Johnny are good friends now ; that is one of her 
clever ways. She can bring a fellow safely 
25 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


through the ‘softy period’ and land him a last- 
ing friend. I know,” he laughed, “because I am 
a lasting friend.” 

“It seems to an untrained eye that you are 
not altogether out of the ‘softy period,’ ” smiled 
the man of detail. 

*‘Well, she is worth the trouble,” said Stetson. 

They finished their drinks in silence and got 
into their overcoats to go back to the office. Victor 
stopped a minute by Anne’s chair, and the liter- 
ary man leaned against a pillar with folded 
arms, looking over and keenly appraising the 
human show. 

“I am going back to New York,” said Anne, 
giving him her hand. “I just can’t endure it 
out here any longer. I had a letter from Ruth 
to-day and am to have a room in the same house 
with them.” 

“That’s well enough for them, — but poor 
me!” 

“Oh, you’ll manage somehow,” she smiled. 

“Heard from John lately?” 

“Yes; he thinks I am right to come to New 
York. There is not much chance for me here, 
and no one I really know well — except Vic,” she 
26 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


smiled. As she turned her face back so that the 
light fell on her strongly, Victor was shocked 
at the change in her. 

“Odd, thinking of Ruth and the Man-eater 
married, isn’t it?” he reflected absently. 

“Are you doing anything for your cold ?” she 
asked. “Come in to tea to-morrow and give an 
account of yourself ; there are dozens of things 
I want to talk to you about.” 

“Thanks; four o’clock?” 

“Yes; good night.” 

Anne twisted her glass about silently for a 
while after the door had closed on Victor. Si- 
lence never embarrassed her. “Strange, is it 
not,” she queried, “how a certain type of big- 
hearted, addle-pated boy can sometimes sense a 
woman to the very heart of her?” 

“That is, when the big boy loves the woman,” 
suggested the man. 

“But,” she laughed, “prove your rule. How 
about it when she loves a man? Why does it not 
work both ways?” 

“Maybe she is not addle-pated enough to know 
without thinking,” he smiled. 

“Or ‘big-hearted’ enough,” she finished. 

n 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Besides,” and he rested his arms on the table 
and watched her, amused, “does she ever, really, 
love a man?” 

“She? Who? Eve, or — just me?” she asked 
half in earnest. 

“Both one and the other, they being one and 
the same.” He raised his shoulders and laughed, 
then luxuriously devoured an oyster. “Frankly, 
Miss Preston, I am sorry you are going away. 
You are never a responsibility and I am selfish 
enough to prefer that sort of woman. One meets 
her seldom enough. You see, you keep a man 
so pleasantly occupied with other things that he 
quite forgets to make love to you, and when he 
is no better than penniless there is rare tact in 
making him forget.” 

“I am poor as a church-mouse myself,” she 
smiled. “I suppose it is really very stupid of 
me not to give some well provided young man 
time to think.” 

“Now, don’t, don’t talk like that !” The man’s 
nervous face twitched with impatience. “I de- 
test hearing women talk so. If you please, I 
can do enough of that for two.” 

“Stuff,” said Anne, only half amused. 

28 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“You won’t have to do that. Your work is 
good; if you will just slave and stand for the 
tumbles, you’ll make it.” 

“I do hope so,” said Anne, simply. 

“Hope? Fallacy; don’t waste time hoping. 
Work and pluck are the things; they count.” 

“One needs a very strong backbone,” she 
sighed, looking a little tired of it all. 

“Rather cuts women out of the game, of 
course,” he said absently. 

“I suppose so,” she agreed, looking at her 
glass. 

“There you go again. Supposing won’t 
do either. You must keep still until you are 
sure, then go for the head of the nail. Do, do, 
do, is the way.” The man brought his hand 
down heavily on the table. A big flat hand it 
was ; a hand of deeds. 

Anne quietly leaned over and laid her small, 
smooth palm beside his. He looked from the 
incongruous hands to her face, puzzling at the 
something in her eyes — eyes in which he had al- 
ways found a sympathetic cynicism. 

“Now, don’t any more, to-night at least,” she 
said quietly. “It may be childish, I know it is 
29 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


womanish, but I can not endure that sort of talk 
to-night. You see I have been having lessons in 
‘doing’ lately. Let’s go home, please.” 

“Miss Preston, I’m so sorry. I have been such 
a brute. A man must say that sort of thing to 
himself to keep going, and I was babbling my 
own lesson aloud.” 

“You need not be sorry. Women know the 
plain truth as well as men, but,” she smiled, “they 
can’t always stand the sound of it.” 

“That is all very well, but it makes me no less 
a brute.” 

Anne wheeled about and looked him in the 
eyes; she was nearly savage in her intensity. 
“Be glad that you are a brute,” she said bruskly. 
“It is just that God-sent brute quality that helps 
you men to succeed above and beyond us. Now,” 
she laughed, “let me hear you say something 
more brutal than that.” 

The man’s voice was gentle when he answered 
her. “I fancy that if tact and brutality got to- 
gether like that oftener we’d all get along faster. 
It’s a bigger combination, after all, than nerve 
and doing.” He helped her into her coat. 

“Speaking of tact,” she smiled. She pulled 

30 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


herself together to meet the storm and wind out- 
side, in mood welcoming the struggle. As they 
reeled around a comer to their car she laughed 
in her old way. “Nothing like an actual fight 
with something to drive away the blue devils, is 
there?” she gasped, clinging to her hat. “Be- 
tween you and the wind I’m feeling quite myself 
again.” 

“Better not try to talk in the wind,” said the 
man from the depths of his collar. 


31 


CHAPTER III 


A sound as of battle comes up from the sea. 

— Swinburne. 

John Warren was standing again by his bed- 
room window. It was another spring morning, 
but the boy had grown into the bigger sort of 
boy that sometimes deserves being called a man. 
Things about bespoke an artistic prosperity; 
there were green raw silk curtains at the windows 
now, and the scarlet geranium looked pampered. 
Because of the quality, the peculiar stolid deli- 
cacy of his work, he had promptly found his 
place in the professional world. There was luck 
in his finding it so soon. He had not changed 
since that other spring morning, except in in- 
tensity. 

He was wondering if Anne and Catherine 
Gage would be, could be, the friends he wanted 
them to be. He had read somewhere, — he read a 
great deal ; one finds things out in books without 
32 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


asking, — that “taste is genius, and style is imi- 
tation,” and he saw the two 1 girls so classified. 

He knew well that, except as taste and style 
are certain to meet with tact, there would be little 
friendship and plenty of mental reservation. 
Anne had few girl or woman friends. Her heart 
had to be marched upon through her brain, and 
there was all the stubbornness of youth about her 
standard. Once her respect for “skill” was ap- 
pealed to she gave freely, even too generously; 
but on that ground women seldom interested her. 

John knew this better than any one and felt 
powerless ; he wanted Anne’s companionship 
nearly as much as he wanted Catherine for his 
wife. Her appreciation, knowledge and enthusi- 
asm meant much to him; her senses were finely 
keyed and her honesty was a tonic. His engage- 
ment to Catherine had established a firmer basis 
of friendship for them than ever before, and 
Anne had brain enough to hold the pose. But 
could he ever bring her to accept Catherine from 
his point of view ? His mind traveled back to the 
first winter he had known Anne, and he laughed 
as he remembered what a prig he had been. 

He turned away from the window to look at a 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


photograph of Catherine that stood on the shelf 
over the fireplace. 

“It was just as well I was a prig,” he said to 
the picture. “A little more and I’d have been 
in love with the youngster, and that might 
have delayed my finding you, dear girl.” The 
well-groomed, clear-eyed health of Catherine at- 
tracted him; he believed in that sort of woman 
for a wife. Nearly all men do, and wisely. 
It is only once in a way that a man and a woman 
rise successfully above wisdom. The idea was 
not included in John’s present scope; he was 
still a bewildered plodder in the land of conven- 
tions. But the plodder is likely to be thorough 
and seldom has work to do over. He learns well 
if slowly. 

He went to his desk and took out a photo- 
graph of Anne and placed it beside Catherine’s. 
The girl’s eyes smiled mysteriously at him from 
the shadow of a big sophisticated hat and a mass 
of soft fur. “Well, Nancy, you have the ‘spark,’ 
whatever that means, and I hope you’ll hit it 
off.” He took the picture of Catherine in his 
big deft hands and looked at it affectionately. 
John was a student of looks as well as books. 

34 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“But, dear,” he smiled, “we do not find Nancy 
a restful girl, do we? And we suspect she’ll be 
driving some poor devil about crazy one of these 
days.” He put them side by side again and 
stepped back with folded arms to enjoy his mas- 
tery of the situation, noticing with amusement 
how the shadow thrown upward from the shelf 
drew them together and wrapped them in a com- 
mon tone. For the moment they were both his. 

“We’d go crazy in this world, Nancy, except 
for the shadows,” he laughed, and his eyes wan- 
dered a moment to a fine old Japanese print by 
Hokusai that hung above the photographs. 
“Have you ever thought it out, Nancy? The 
Japs don’t put in the shadows at all, and yet, 
how mellow ! What’s the secret of that ?” Again 
he glanced at Catherine. It was a good oppor- 
tunity to practise tact. “You don’t care a fig 
whether they put in the shadows or not, do you, 
dear?” Then he nodded at Anne. “I have 
thought it out for myself, young woman. The 
prints are all shadow and they leave out the 
glare. The clever little Japs!” 

He glanced at the clock that had belonged to 
some one’s grandfather, who had left no name 
35 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


to the posterity of the pawnshop. Anne was 
coming at one o’clock to pose for the pictures 
of an old-time story he was illustrating. The 
girl’s fine head, quantity of smooth hair and 
sloping shoulders made any model he knew 
seem tame and stupid by comparison, and with 
a twinge of conscience he had asked her to pose 
for him. It was almost time for her to come. 

He went into the studio and got out the cos- 
tume she was to pose in. He stood smoothing the 
old silk and looking out of the window. The day 
was sharp and his eyes caught too much for 
comfort. Great masses of loose cloud, harmless 
and feathery, were dotted over the sky, and the 
black smoke from a tall factory chimney strutted 
shamelessly across the face of the blue and white 
deep. The commercial element that everywhere 
dominated the sky-line reflected something from 
within himself, and impatiently he pulled the 
curtains. The light from the sky-window was 
enough, was better; he did not want his head 
befogged now; he had work to do. To believe 
in “one thing at a time” is sane and admirable; 
to live it, unusual ! A tap at the door and there 
stood Anne, her face bright with the fresh spirit 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


of out-of-doors that clung to her as if it could not 
give her up. 

“You gipsy!” said John. “You look like 
your old photograph to-day, Nancy. I have 
just been having a talk with it.” 

“That old thing? I am certain it went into 
the waste-basket ages ago !” 

“Come and see for yourself,” and John led the 
way into the little room off the studio. 

“This is — Catherine?” Anne stood absorbing 
the likeness by the side of her own. 

“Yes ; and, Anne, I do want you to like her.” 

She looked at him over her shoulder with a 
laugh on her mouth and scorn in her eyes. 

“But I won’t. You know very well, John, that 
we have absolutely nothing in common.” She de- 
liberately set the two pictures as far apart as 
the length of the shelf would permit. “There,” 
she laughed, “they are safer so! That precious 
little green vase might otherwise get its neck 
broken.” Then she let her hands hang limp at 
her sides and turned her eyes slowly about the 
room. A long expected and much dreaded occa- 
sion had arrived and been dealt with, and she felt 
tired. The girl was what she had supposed ; just 

37 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


the same it made her heart-sick. “This is your 
room, John?” There was cynicism lurking even 
in the poise of her head. 

“You think it — nice?” he questioned. He 
spoke, thoughtlessly thankful, only to get her off 
the subject of the photographs and their un- 
fortunate proximity. 

“Why, yes.” She shrugged her shoulders. 
“Nice — that is just what it is. Haven’t you out- 
grown that word yet, John? I suppose” — and 
again she swept her eyes about the room — “it is 
the sort of room you believe in having.” 

“I — don’t understand, Anne,” he said, un- 
easily stiff. 

“Well, for the matter of that, neither do I !” 
she laughed. 

“Anne, you used to get angry with me at noth- 
ing; once in particular, I remember — ” 

She turned on him in a moment. 

“So, you remember, do you? Well, I do not 
need to be reminded, I assure you. It is amazing 
that you should remember a thing so trifling if 
it meant nothing.” 

“You know very well I meant nothing, but — 
isn’t it my turn now?” 

38 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Perhaps it is, John,” she said slowly, and her 
eyes turned toward the window holding the some- 
thing like mist that tells of thoughts traveling 
backward. “You called me a ‘gingham rose,’ did 
you not? Well, it was at least an unkindness 
prettily turned.” She took him into her gaze 
in an odd, half-seeing way. “And,” she smiled, 
“I have just dared to suggest darkly that you 
are something of a fraud. I even venture to add 
the prediction that you’ll like it less than I do 
when you find it out for yourself. And, John, in 
time we’ll both know whether we are real proph- 
ets and seers. But,” she added with sudden 
lightness, “this isn’t posing, is it?” 

John did not feel sure ; but the girl was com- 
pelling, dominating, and after a thought he de- 
cided it was safer to fall in with her mood. He 
took refuge in his work and let her become to 
him as a tool, forced himself to think of her as 
he did of his canvas or his brushes, or, to be more 
just, the old silk dress he had found for the pose. 
He loved an old fabric. 

“Come and have a look at the dress, Anne. 
Beautiful, is it not?” 

“Lovely!” Anne passed her hand reverently 

39 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


over the silvery stuff. “A piece of old silk, 
John, or a steam-engine, fills me with awe,” she 
said, and her laugh was in gentle tune with the 
rustling silk. The dress was a gray taffeta pat- 
terned over with tiny pink and green rosebuds. 

“There are pins and a comb and things,” said 
John. “Do your hair low, please, parted, you 
know. I’ll go outside and leave you the place 
to rig up in.” 

“All right,” said Anne, briskly taking a pin 
out of her neck ribbon. She was secretly biting 
her tongue for having led her into temper. “I’ll 
whistle ‘when.’ ” 

John shut the door and walked up and down 
the hall with a cigarette, trying to ponder out 
what the strange girl meant about his room, 
about him, and wishing profoundly that she 
would get over the habit of only half saying 
things. Then a bar of Johnny comes march- 
ing home was whistled over the transom and he 
hurried in, forgetting, in his keen delight with 
the way Anne and the costume suited each other, 
to shut the door behind him. 

She stood before the mirror trying to hook the 
skirtband. “Great, isn’t it?” she mumbled over 
40 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


her shoulder with a pin in her mouth. “But it 
was made for a slimmer person than I, and I’m 
afraid of bursting out the shoulders. Do you 
suppose you could hook that for me?” 

“Take that pin out of your mouth,” said John, 
getting down on his knees. He pulled and 
tugged for all he was worth. “How under the 
sun do you women stand such things? I didn’t 
know there was so much of you,” he laughed. 

“Goodness, Johnny,” she gasped, “you are 
sawing me in two. Now wait a second and I’ll 
hold my breath. One, two, three !” she laughed. 

“John!” cried an amazed voice from the for- 
gotten doorway; and there, with a severe, mid- 
dle-aged woman, in cut jet and black-spotted 
velvet, looking undisguised horror over her 
shoulder, stood the girl of the photograph, 
Catherine. The girl was beautifully dressed in 
much embroidered light gray, and she held her 
skirts out of the dust with her white-gloved 
hands. 

“Catherine!” gasped John, getting awkward- 
ly to his feet and going quickly to the door. 
“Why didn’t you let me know? Mrs. Tyler, 
I’m awfully glad to see you. Catherine, Anne, 
Miss Gage and Mrs. Tyler, I want you to meet 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


my friend, Miss Preston. You know” — and 
John laughed nervously — “you really surprised 
me!” 

“Apparently,” responded Mrs. Tyler in a 
voice below zero. 

Anne’s mind worked in flashes. One flash told 
her that John was not master of his own situa- 
tion; another, that of the two she would pity 
Catherine more than John in the end. She saw 
that Catherine, if a little dull, was at least sin- 
cere. The other flash announced to her a com- 
plete antagonism between herself and Mrs. Ty- 
ler. “I am so glad you came just then, Miss 
Gage,” she smiled, and in his heart John gave 
thanks. “You see,” she hurried on, “you can 
help me into this old dress. I am posing for 
John, you know. He was doing his best, but men 
are awkward. Isn’t it a delicious silk, Mrs. 
Tyler? One does not find such silks in the shops 
nowadays.” 

“I think,” said Mrs. Tyler, remotely, as if 
from a snow-capped mountain of virtue wrapped 
in a cloud of family pride, “that I have not been 
aware of a noticeable change in the make of silk 
in my day.” 


n 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


For a moment John felt as if he had been 
plunged into ice-water. He thought Anne was 
going to laugh. And so did Anne, but she strug- 
gled bravely for his sake. She let her eyes 
gleam into his for one moment, then, with a 
sweetness rather too sweet, she said: 

“Of course not. I had heard of you as Miss 
Gage’s aunt, and the word is so misleading, and 
in the shadow of the doorway, you know, I could 
not see for myself.” 

Catherine stood for an absent moment pulling 
off her gloves, then she helped Anne fasten the 
skirt, while Mrs. Tyler, in a low but carefully 
audible voice, talked with John and observed 
Anne from top to toe through her lorgnette. 

“It was Catherine, I assure you, who was pos- 
sessed of the absurd idea of Surprising’ you. 
She is very young and knows next to nothing of 
men. What do you pay your models? She is 
very pretty.” 

The color flew to John’s face, but his eyes 
implored Anne’s patience. 

“If there were models to be found half as in- 
teresting as Miss Preston, there would be no oc- 
casion to impose on her friendship,” he said loy- 
43 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


ally. Anne’s responsive color thanked him. For 
a moment they were one in sympathy. A man 
never loves a woman so well as when he has been 
able to come to her rescue. 

Anne beamed on Catherine. John’s generosity 
had helped her back to her own. It even put her 
in a mood to be amused with the crotchets of Mrs. 
Tyler. 

“I almost wish they’d wear dresses like these 
agaih. They are so pretty.” 

Catherine felt baffled. The situation defied 
her ; she felt thrust aside, as if she had no part. 
She felt too often as if she had been thrust aside 
from understanding John and his work. But she 
had a kind of dignity, very gentle, too ; so, when 
John began clearing portfolios and draperies off 
the chairs for them, she smiled and shook her 
head at him. 

“No, John, not now. We came in just to ask 
you to dine with us. Auntie has a lot of shop- 
ping to do. You’ll come?” 

“Of course,” said John, enthusiastically. 
Mrs. Tyler smiled. “Then we’ll see something 
at the theater. Mrs. Fiske has a new play.” 

Mrs. Tyler raised her hands in protest. “I’d 

44 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


rather see something diverting. I do not ap- 
prove of these problem plays.” 

“But,” said Anne, with rising color, “she is so 
artistic.” Mrs. Fiske was one of the people she 
believed in, and when Anne believed she was 
thorough about it. 

Mrs. Tyler paused patiently, as if she must 
endure with Christian grace something deplora- 
ble and unavoidable. 

“It is scarcely necessary to go to the theaters 
in order to be harrowed in these extraordinary 
days,” she murmured in a padded voice. 

“Oh, of course,” responded Anne, with sym- 
pathy. “If one is out of sorts or upset about 
something — perhaps; Mrs. Fiske does not aim 
to be a rest-cure.” 

“We dine promptly,” said Mrs. Tyler, fixing 
her eyes on John, as he walked with them to the 
elevator. 

John heard himself say “thank you” or some- 
thing equally imbecile, as the elevator descended. 
He stood with his face against the cool iron net- 
ting for a moment before going back to the 
studio to face Anne. He realized how uncertain 




45 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


a thing is peace as long as the women a man 
knows are young enough to be experimental. He 
found Anne wrapped in a studied composure and 
he saw with apprehension the laughter strug- 
gling back of her eyes. 

“A horrible old woman, John,” she said frank- 
ly. “I am sorry I nettled her, because, of course, 
she will take it out on you. There are a few 
things that irritate me, and stupidity about Mrs. 
Fiske is one of them. Poor John, I suppose you 
marry her too?” 

“Not much,” said John, emphatically. “She 
is a conventional old tea-drinker, and that is a 
fact, and she just didn’t understand you. She 
has grown up on a farm and has money enough 
to keep a wall around her. That’s all.” 

Anne winced but made no reply. Then they 
tried poses until the right one was found and 
John went to work. The time flew by, for him at 
least. 

“Johnny?” 

“Nancy?” 

“Isn’t it getting rather late?” 

“Tired?” 


46 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“No, but,” she mimicked, 44 4 we dine prompt- 
ly’ !” 

“Oh, chuck it,” groaned John. “Let me work 
ten minutes more. That won’t hurt any one. I 
don’t care if it does.” 

She smiled and held her pose. 

“Will you come again on Thursday?” he 
asked. 

“If you will promise to keep the door shut.” 

John put aside his brushes and palette and 
came over by the girl’s chair. 

“See here, kid,” he said slowly, “it is a trifle 
awkward, but you know without being told that 
I wanted to hit something before that old shrew 
got through talking. But, Nancy, Catherine is 
different, and I want to put up with things for 
her sake.” 

44 Well,” she responded, looking up at him with 
earnestness in her eyes, “you are right to do 
that, of course. But the question is, John, how 
much putting up with things are you going to 
stand? Catherine seems a sweet girl; for my 
part, I like more pepper. But once you get her 
away from that old tyrant she will, no doubt, 
make an affable wife.” 


4,7 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“I think so,” said John ; and Anne promptly 
astonished him by laughing. 

“Dear John, you are as good as done for,” 
she sighed. “Any one could see that ! Why, you 
blessed goose, don’t you know that Aunt Agatha 
Tyler will never consent to be left behind ? She 
will come to live with you !” She considered him 
solemnly. “Always the fattest lamb to the sacri- 
fice !” 

“You are very — sympathetic,” said John, bit- 
terly. He hated ridicule. 

Anne got out of her chair and stood before 
him, her eyes peering into his. “Do you feel like 
that about it, John?” 

He bit his lip and turned away. “I’ll go out- 
side while you change your dress,” he said. 
Again he paced the hall with more to think 
about. He almost wished Anne had stayed out 
west. She ruffled him, upset his purpose, and 
disturbed his creed of life uncomfortably. She 
was troublesome. When she whistled again he 
found her pinning on her hat and smiling at him 
serenely in the glass. 

“You are a funny sort of girl,” he commented 
absently. 


48 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“No!” said Anne, with wide-eyed incredulity. 

As she gave him her hand at the door, John 
looked at her seriously. Mrs. Tyler and her 
point of view had shown him clearly how abso- 
lutely alone and “impossible” to her sort Anne 
was. He wanted to help her, and he felt it could 
be done somehow without hurting him. He had 
no idea of giving Anne up, but she must not con- 
flict with other things as important. 

“You would tell me, Nancy, if there was any- 
thing I could do to help you — in your work, you 
know.” 

Her eyes narrowed a moment, then she 
laughed. 

“Dear, dear, John!” she sighed with assumed 
tragedy. “Any one could see that you are pre- 
paring either for the grave or matrimony.” 

“But” — and John’s weariness was ill-con- 
cealed — “I am not; not for ever so long.” 

“That,” said the girl with conviction, “is a 
great mistake. The younger, the prettier, you 
know. Besides, think of it ! you’ll never be able 
to call down that old woman properly, till you 
are safely married. I thirst to see fair play !” 


49 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Thursday at one, then?” John’s eyes looked 
tired. 

The girl impulsively turned. 

“I’ve been anything but ‘nice’ this afternoon, 
John. I know it as well as Mrs. Tyler. I hate 
being ‘nice.’ But I’m awfully sorry — for you !” 
she finished with an exasperating chuckle. 

“I’m not in need of sympathy,” said John, 
proudly. 

“You just tell that to your grandmother!” 
said Anne. “Good night,” and she was gone. 

“Good night,” echoed John, and he stumbled 
over a piece of drapery. He kicked it aside 
furiously, then stood looking at it. He hated 
temper, or the look of it. He stopped, picked 
up the bit of tapestry, folded it and laid it 
away in a chest, then deliberately dressed for din- 
ner, — for dinner and Catherine’s aunt. 


50 


CHAPTER IV 


Crush that life, and behold its wine running. 

— Browning. 

Anne and Ruth, — Ruth was now Mrs. Man- 
eater or Mrs. Rathburn, according to Anne’s 
mood, — had finished their breakfast slowly, 
waiting for the postman. Ruth in her new hap- 
piness was prettier than ever; especially since 
she had Anne back again, it seemed to her that 
life had little more to give. 

“Oh, dear,” sighed Anne, and there was a note 
of fright in the sigh; “there he is and with my 
story back again! The manila package, I’d 
know it anywhere ; I can feel it !” 

The package held Anne’s first long story. She 
had published several short ones, but they meant 
little to her. The long one had traveled far and 
to no apparent purpose except the piling up of a 
little heap of slips — “The editor regrets — ” 
The heap was small, after all, but no mole-hill 
ever wore the mask of a mountain more stub- 
bornly. 




A GINGHAM ROSE 


“I wonder, Ruth,” the girl said slowly, “if I 
am a failure? Do you realize what that means? 
Nearly all ‘artistic’ women do fail in anything 
that really counts. They end just hacks. I sup- 
pose I am ‘artistic’ beyond a doubt; that is the 
trouble. Everything is in favor of my being a 
beautiful failure. I never saw myself before.” 
She held the package off at arm’s length and 
looked at it with horror. “Perhaps I have been 
blind, Ruth. Perhaps the story is an ugly, mis- 
shapen thing after all. Perhaps I’ve looked at 
it so long that I don’t really see it.” 

“Anne, dear, don’t talk so, please don’t.” 
Ruth caught the girl’s hand. “You are not 
fair to yourself ; you know you are not. All 
the really good things have a bad time finding 
a publisher ; you know that is so.” 

“And all the really bad things, too, Ruth. 
Only,” she smiled, “unless one has done them, 
one never hears of them.” The two girls stood 
looking a dumb moment into each other’s blue 
eyes. 

“It’s a beautiful story,” faltered Ruth, low- 
ering her eyes first. 

“I wish I knew that,” said Anne. “But, girlie, 

52 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


the opinion of a friend isn’t worth a cent. The 
overworked, tyrant editor with his burglar- 
proof, fire-proof heart is the one that counts. 
He hasn’t time to read between the lines, you see. 
That’s the secret of the bad books: they are all 
good enough, between the lines !” 

Ruth felt hurt and uncertain what to do. 
Anne had lately, since the work had come to be 
serious with her, seemed so far out of her reach. 
She felt unable to follow the girl through her 
troubles. She seemed to resent her help. Anne 
understood well enough and valued Ruth’s sym- 
pathy, but, young as she was, she had learned 
that the dark places have to be lighted by self- 
conviction and the steep places climbed with self- 
found strength. She held up her head and 
smiled. If Ruth was weak, she must be strong. 

“Now, Ruth, don’t be blue; one of us at a 
time is enough. The truth of the matter is 
that the book is so close a signal from the land 
of the truly wonderful that the tyrants are 
afraid. They do not find in it a familiar; it is 
not just after the pattern of the ninety and nine. 
You see, our conceit is not extinguished.” Anne 
laughed, and Ruth wished in her soul she would 
53 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


not do it again; not in that way. “Oh, you’ll 
be glad to know me some day, Mrs. Man-eater.” 
She held the story close in her folded arms and 
looked down on the girl with mock majesty. 
“That is, if you have great patience, and I can 
find meal-tickets with which to bridge the gap.” 

Ruth’s eyes filled. 

“It is not fair to us to talk that way, Nancy. 
You know very well that as long as we have a 
thing in the world there can be no gap for you 
to bridge.” 

Anne flung her arm around the girl’s shoul- 
ders and her own eyes were bright. 

“Come along upstairs,” she said gently, as if 
Ruth were the one, after all, in need of sympa- 
thy. “We’ll put the thing away and let it sim- 
mer for ever so long, then some day when we have 
learned a thing or two we’ll get it out, and burn 
the editor in effigy, and do it all over again. The 
story is all right, of course ; I’d like to hear any 
one say it isn’t, but it’s too big for me. I’ve 
been having a bad attack of self-overestimation 
and this — bleeding,” she sighed, “ — will clear 
my head of the vapors.” 


54 


A GINGHAM ROSE 

When they got to her room she pulled a box 
out from under her couch and put the package 
under all the papers and letters, just as it was, 
without breaking the string. “Will you sing a 
dirge?” she asked, looking up solemnly at Ruth, 
who laughed, though her eyes were wet. “There, 
it is buried, ‘slip and all.’ The very sight of an- 
other of those bits of paper would turn my heart 
wrong side out, I know it would. Now, Miss 
Ruth, we are going to be very meek and attend 
to the pots and pans, till we have earned our way 
to the library.” 

Ruth rejoiced to see the inborn grit of the 
girl come so certainly to the surface, and she 
left her feeling sure that, for this time at least, 
the worst of it was past. She was at the stage 
of housekeeping where she insisted on dusting 
her wedding presents herself, and as she went 
daintily about she wished in her heart that Anne 
would get married. Certainly it was the only 
thing for a girl to do, and, as she sought out 
the dust, the sunshine pouring in the windows 
in a flood of gold and shining on her yellow hair, 
her heart trilled like a canary in a golden cage. 


55 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Anne came down to lunch with her hat on. 
She seemed to hide in its shadow, but Ruth saw 
that her eyes looked tired. 

“I am going out, Ruth. I think I shall go up 
and have a talk with John. I want to see some 
good work, for a tonic. Isn’t it stifling? More 
like August than June, isn’t it? When do you 
two go away?” 

The Man-eater looked at Anne quizzically. 
“Now, do not dare say, young woman, that you 
are not going with us,” and he knew by the 
quick pressure of his hand under the tablecloth 
that he had said the right thing to please Ruth. 

“You know very well, Nancy, that you need 
the change,” Ruth added quickly. 

“Yes,” laughed Anne, and there was some- 
thing made-up and metallic in the ring of the 
laugh, “I need the change; that is just what I 
do need.” She shuddered. It cost her a pang 
to say something jarring. 

“Now, Nancy,” the two began, but she 
stopped them proudly. “I should not have said 
that. It’s cowardly, pretty nearly boastful, to 
make things out worse than they are. But I 
can not well afford to go; it is very reasonable 
50 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


here and not at all uncomfortable. Please don’t 
make it harder for me. Thousands of people do 
stay in town in the summer, you know, and there 
is no special reason why I should be pampered. 
I shall get to know the city in summer-time, you 
see, and shall turn it to copy if not to account. 
Possibly I’ll be a little late for dinner to-night, 
but don’t wait for me. I’ll come right down.” 
She had eaten almost nothing. 

“What are we to do with her?” said Ruth, 
hopelessly, after Anne had left the house. 

“Let her be, dear,” said the Man-eater. “She 
has to find things out for herself.” 

“But I know she is lonely, and it hurts me.” 

“Well,” sighed the man, with a wondering 
look at Ruth, “every one is lonely, except you 
and me.” 

She smiled up at him and wished with all her 
might a like fate for Anne. In that she reached 
the limit of her generosity. 

Anne sauntered absently over to the elevated 
station. She had never in her life felt so tired, 
so wilted, so hopeless, and so curiously indiffer- 
ent. She felt as numb as a leaf on the wind. 
She stopped at the foot of the elevated stairway, 
57 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


caught by a clever poster. She did not notice 
the gay thing for itself, but stood wondering at 
its trick of line until brought to herself by a 
conscious laugh from a young man, who was be- 
ing led rapidly through life at the end of a 
cigarette which, like some sacred lamp, seemed 
never to go out. It occurred to her that life 
wasn’t much above advertising, after all. 

She shut her eyes as she moved up the stairs. 
The glare hurt so ; she wondered if she were go- 
ing to be ill. She was top-heavy and her hand 
shook. But it would not be so bad to be just ill 
enough to be forced to lie in bed a whole week, 
to lie still and not think. 

Her foot touched something soft and she 
jumped back startled. It was a gray leather 
pocketbook. She opened it, smiling at the con- 
science-problem as she counted over the money, — 
almost five dollars. She looked down on the 
busy street, letting her eyes follow the carts and 
wagons; everything was going, pretend as it 
would, after something to eat: the clang of 
the surface cars, the jar and rumble of the trains 
passing overhead, the various horrors one’s ears 
must endure, — all that people might be fed. 
58 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


It was wonderful, too, when one really thought 
about it, how much might be done with almost 
five dollars. But perhaps the ticket-man up at 
the window needed it more than she did. The 
thought possessed her and she ran up quickly 
and thrust it through the window. 

“I found that on the stairs,” she explained. 
“No doubt it will be called for.” She looked into 
the eyes of the pale young man and decided that 
he did need it more than she did, and she hoped 
he’d squander it and have a good time. As she 
was deliberately tempting him the fault was hers, 
and she concluded with a mental shrug that she 
could stand the responsibility. 

“Thank you, no doubt the owner will call,” 
said the ticket-man, fingering the purse ques- 
tioningly. 

“Almost five dollars,” said Anne, glancing at 
his hand. 

“Shall I take your name?” he asked hurriedly, 
covering his confusion with routine. 

She took her ticket and carefully emptied her 
change into her own pocketbook. “No, thank 
you. I don’t care about rewards.” 

She hurried into her car and sat quiet with her 

59 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


hands idle in her lap. Her fresh wash dress and 
smooth hair and look of outward coolness, in con- 
trast with the storm back of her eyes, made an 
interesting problem for the philosopher that one 
may never escape on the trains. She did what lit- 
tle shopping she had to do and was amused to see 
how many things were to be had for a little less 
than five dollars. But none of them compared 
with the good time the ticket-man and his girl 
would have with the money. Of course, every 
ticket-man must have a girl, and she fancied 
how they would take a boat and go down to 
Coney Island for the day, and she smiled to 
catch herself looking up at the sky and hop- 
ing that Sunday would be fine. Then she re- 
membered that ticket-men work on Sunday, too, 
and gave it up. She went around to see John. 

At sight of his door she stood still. Just why 
had she come ? “Can I tell him about the story ; 
that I am a failure?” she asked herself. “I came 
for that ; I think I did.” She sighed again and 
it seemed to her she would suffocate if she did not 
talk things over with some one who understood. 
“One can not go on living inside for ever.” Even 
as she let the knocker fall back she laughed at 
60 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


herself ; she knew very well she would tell him 
nothing about it. “But, why have I come? 
What will he think?” Her hands went up to 
her head as she heard a chair pushed back and 
a commotion inside. “Perhaps,” she laughed, 
“if I just keep still he’ll tell me why. It some- 
times happens like that.” The door was opened 
just a crack and a tall slice of John, minus coat 
and collar, became visible. 

“It’s only me,” she said, less grammatical than 
eager. “Are you too busy to let me in?” 

“Wait just a minute, will you?” and John 
disappeared. 

“Truly, John, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t come 
for anything in particular.” 

“But it does matter,” called John. “Awfully 
glad to see you. You can tell me about this 
thing I am doing. I say, Nancy, do you care 
if I leave off my collar and coat?” 

“Not a bit, Johnny. It is sizzling hot.” 

“It isn’t that, bless you,” said John. “I was 
out in the country yesterday with some other 
fellows, and the heat and the water got the bet- 
ter of us; we stayed in too long. I think my 
back is all coming off.” Then John opened the 
61 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


door wide and gave his hand to Anne. She won- 
dered then that she had ever dreamed of telling 
him anything about her troubles. One is chary 
of speaking of one’s failures to a big, brawny, 
successful young man. 

“We’ll have to make up for the lack of cos- 
tume with extra ceremony,” he laughed, and led 
her by the hand to a big throne chair by the 
window. He pulled the long pins out of her hat 
with an assurance that was not to be contra- 
dicted, then raised the hat to the ceiling on the 
tip of a curtain pole, and, after balancing it 
around the room, he fixed it with nice skill upon 
a nail out of reach. “Now, then,” he laughed, 
“you can’t go home till I say you may.” 

“You do even the little every-day things — dif- 
ferently,” she smiled, leaning her head back in 
the deep chair and watching him lazily. 

“What do you think of this drawing, Nancy?” 
he asked, pulling the easel about so that she 
could see without moving. 

“Oh, dear me, how charming!” 

“Now you have done your duty, let’s have the 
cold truth.” 

“But, John, that is what I think.” She looked 

62 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


at him curiously and with reproof. She had al- 
ways scolded him ever since she had known him, 
and her advice sometimes provoked him and 
sometimes amused. “Why do you always run 
your work down? If you have the common 
gumption to do it, you must have the common 
sense to see that it is good. It may be sincere, 
but it doesn’t sound so.” 

John’s face flushed beneath the sunburn. 
“Isn’t it rather hot for moralizing?” he asked 
satirically. 

“It’s nothing but backhanded boasting,” she 
persisted solemnly. 

“You are very frank, Anne.” 

“I know it,” she sighed. “It’s my besetting 
sin. But I am right about it.” 

John picked up a pencil and carefully trailed 
it over a line or two of the drawing. She an- 
gered him to-day, but he had no idea of letting 
her know it. She was worth the discomfort of 
hei: honesty. He wondered why, after all, he 
took things from her that he wouldn’t have said 
to himself. 

“You see, John, it’s so dangerous. Some day 
you may find some one who is idiot enough to 
63 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


believe you.” He did not answer and she sat 
watching him idly. It was very close and still 
up there. She forgot what they had been talk- 
ing about in a moment and thought only of 
how strong he looked in his loose white shirt, 
how fine his throat was, and she wondered, half- 
amused, if he had really burned his back at all. 
The shirt was made like the traditional dueling 
shirt that is so dear to the heart of the matinee 
girl. Something, she did not know what, made 
her color rise and she turned her eyes quickly 
toward the window, letting them follow the black 
streak of factory smoke that seemed to flow 
across the sky so easily. 

“I’d like to break into smoke like that,” she 
sighed. 

John stood by the window with his arms 
folded. “Maybe you will, one of these days, 
kid, but you’ve got to go through the coal-hole 
and the furnace first.” 

Again she flushed. John did not often say 
such things, but when he did she never forgot. 
Her eyes moved with the smoke, fascinated, 
watching to see how it changed as it reeled by 
his tall silhouette. She felt dizzy and faint and 
64 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


wondered again if she were going to be ill. Ev- 
erything inside and outside seemed to be dissolv- 
ing, like the tossing smoke out there, not vio- 
lently, but inevitably. 

“Did you come in for anything in particu- 
lar?” John asked after a while. She did not an- 
swer and he turned quickly. The girl sat, white 
and wide-eyed, looking straight before her as if 
dazed. 

“Nancy,” he cried, bending over her, “are 
you ill?” 

“Why — no,” she said doubtfully, putting her 
hands to her head, “I don’t think I am. The 
smoke rushing by out there made me dizzy. I’ll 
just sit still a little while, please.” 

John made her swallow some brandy and 
stood looking down on her with his back to the 
window. 

“Nancy,” and he patted the back of her hand 
awkwardly, “you are a difficult youngster, some- 
times. You are hard to find, do you know it? 
Were you well when you came up to-day? Did 
you come for some reason? I believe you are 
working too hard ; but you are so confoundedly 
reticent about your work. Tell me !” 

65 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


She had shut her eyes tight when he began 
talking. Her tired mind seemed to lose grip 
of anything tangible, but her hungry heart 
drank in his sympathy like the thirsty flower it 
was. Intuition told her she must pull herself 
together; John had asked her something. She 
opened her eyes wide and smiled at him. It made 
no difference what he had asked, after all. She 
felt absurdly happy because she had roused 
him, had gained the comfort she needed so, with- 
out telling him anything. What was the use of 
talking? Then the drollery crept into her eyes 
again. 

“You look awfully well standing against the 
sky like that,” she said. 

John laughed and collapsed to the floor, sit- 
ting Turkish-fashion at her feet. 

“Where are you going this summer?” he 
asked. “Go to a place near by, so I can run over 
to see you Sundays now and then.” 

“You won’t have far to run,” she smiled. 

“That’s good, but where?” 

“Don’t you know my address ?” she asked with 
mock surprise. 


66 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“But, child alive, you are not well now; you 
need to get away.” 

“I can’t afford going away, Johnny, so there 
is no use talking about it.” 

“Now, see here, kid,” — and he paused, not 
knowing just how to go on. 

“John,” and there was great severity in her 
tone and a twinkle in her eyes, “how long is it 
since you have been to Vermont?” 

“March,” said John, carefully extracting a 
pin from a crack in the floor. 

“How was that horrible old woman?” 

“Holding her own,” smiled John. 

“Do you really believe all that is going to 
make you much better off?” 

“Isn’t that rather a cool way of looking at 
things?” 

“When is it to be?” she asked. 

“I don’t know,” he said bruskly. “How often 
must I tell you that? You know I work slowly. 
I can’t save up very fast.” 

Anne rose suddenly. She felt weak and stood 
with her hands on the arms of her chair. 

“I hope with all my heart that something will 


67 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


happen to save the two of you. I suppose it is 
so, that happiness is always just one step higher, 
no matter what one comes to. But the more I 
know people who paint and write, the more do I 
think that they’d better let marrying be, till they 
have arrived, at least. I’d be a tempest in a tea- 
pot, I know, if any one interfered with me, and 
you’ll be worse than I should, because you are 
selfish. Men all are, Johnny; especially you. 
That is why we like you, maybe,” she smiled. 
“Get my hat down, please. It is growing late; 
see the pink light on the smoke ?” 

John’s protest was earnest. Scold as she 
might, he liked talking with her. Then he got 
down the hat, but very slowly. 

“Now, Miss Missionary, sit here before the 
glass and let an unworthy heathen slave pin it 
on for you. I know very well how it is done !” 

“A wise man is an engaged man,” she smiled. 

“How’s that?” and he stood before her peer- 
ing down into her face to see if the hat was 
straight. 

Anne drew back with a little hysterical gasp. 
“John,” she asked, “did you ever sit in church 
just behind a bald-headed man with a fly crawl- 
68 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


mg over his head and feel that you’d die if you 
might not brush it off?” 

“Why, no,” he said, looking at her with a 
mixture of anxiety and amusement, “I don’t 
think I ever did.” 

“But you should, John,” she smiled wearily. 
“It would round out your experience wonder- 
fully.” 

“What are you talking about, kid?” he 
laughed. 

“How should I know ?” she questioned. “Com- 
ing to see me soon?” 

“Of course. When do the others go away?” 

“Next week.” 

“I’ll tell you a scheme, Nancy. Every Sun- 
day that we are both in town we’ll take a ride, 
car or boat, and find our supper somewhere along 
the way.” 

“Lovely,” said Anne. “But — Aunt Agatha?” 

“There you go again,” groaned John. 

“Very well,” she said. “But remember, it is 
your idea.” 

“I’m responsible,” he laughed. “We’ll go a 
week from to-morrow, first. It’s always cool 
enough up here, so you come by as early as you 

69 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


like and we’ll read or talk till we want to go. 
And, I say, Nancy, don’t fix up. Let’s forget 
how horribly old we are getting and just go in 
for a good time.” 

Anne was standing by the window, the warm, 
early evening air blowing across her face. 

“Can you realize, John, that this is the last 
day of June? 

“ ‘Not a breath of the time that has been hovers 
In the air now soft with a summer to be/ ” 

she quoted softly. “We must go up to the park 
now and then?” 

“Oh yes, of course ; but later on, when people 
are out of town and we can feel as if we owned 
it.” 

Then Anne, with something singing in her 
heart and all her senses blinded, went down into 
the street. As she walked through the cross-town 
street she met, face to face, the shop-girls pour- 
ing out the back doors of the big shops. One 
look into the tense, tired eyes reminded her with 
a shock just why she had gone to see John. 
Unless she earned some money soon she’d have to 
work all day, stupidly, too. 

70 


CHAPTER V 


The solid, not the fragile. 

Tempts rain and hail and thunder. 

— Browning. 

Springtime’s pale blossoms were fast turning 
into fruit, the world was taking on a glow like 
mellow wine and in the sunsets was promise of 
a scarlet autumn. It was a Sunday afternoon 
and the last Sunday in July; Anne and John 
were going to the park for supper. The de- 
serted city streets were draped in iridescent heat, 
nature playing with her gauze drop-curtains and 
caring not a jot that she had no audience. 

Anne put on a dress of tan batiste, with trim 
black satin about her waist and throat. Her 
brown young arms and face gave color to the 
cool tone of her dress. She coiled her hair about 
her head in a flat mass of smooth braids and put 
on a big, light hat of black, topped with a gar- 
den of blue corn-flowers that somehow failed to 
get the better of her blue eyes. She peered 
through her drawn blinds at the hot, glaring 

(71 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


pavement below and sighed to think of John’s 
cool, shadowy studio ; it seemed so far to go. 
But her eyes grew bright with the thought of 
evening in the deep, green park. A quick glance 
at the clock told her she was late, and tucking 
her latch-key in her belt she hurried downstairs. 
Heat is endurable if one’s eyes are fixed on some- 
thing cool beyond. 

What wonderful friends they were, Anne and 
John; what rare summer afternoons they had 
had together ! And always there was a strange, 
fascinating sense of insecurity, each aware of it 
self-accusingly. As she hurried over to her car 
she wondered, with a sigh, why she had spent 
such a lot of time dressing up for somebody 
who was in love with somebody else. Something 
other than the heat burned over her face a deep 
flush. 

“Mighty fashionable!” said John, folding his 
arms and blocking his studio door when Anne 
knocked and stood there, pretending to be all out 
of breath. “I have half a mind to send you 
home without your supper. You are late, do you 
know it?” 

“Oh yes, I know it,” said the girl, bravado 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


brimming over her eyes. “I’d something better 
to do, maybe.” 

“Don’t believe a word of it. You’ve been do- 
ing your hair and dressing up ; any one could 
tell that. Goodness me, what a swagger chick 
we are !” 

“I think so, too,” she answered, strutting 
across the studio with a great air. She paused 
before the empty fireplace and with an amused, 
half earnest look at John over her shoulder she 
shivered theatrically and spread her hands to 
an imaginary blaze. “A very cold day, Jona- 
than. Seems to me you’d be having a fire !” She 
stood poised between gaiety and seriousness. 
“Something really uncomfortable about a fire- 
place in summer-time, is there not?” she queried. 

“You are more than clever, Miss Nancy, at 
the soothing art of changing the subject.” 

“But, Johnny — they are uncomfortable look- 
ing.” She put her head on one side and ob- 
served the chimney-corner critically. “Looks 
like a ring with a stone lost out,” she added. 

“It looks — useless,” admitted John, letting her 
mood lead as it liked. 


73 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Useless !” she echoed severely. “Worse than 
that, Johnny. It looks ugly.” 

“Worse?” smiled John, raising his brows to 
the moral plane. 

“I think so,” she said profoundly, never so 
happy as when she could only guess at what she 
was talking about. Modern and altogether fem- 
inine was Nancy. 

“Well, Miss Philosophy, summers are short.” 

“Perhaps,” Anne made a face, “when one is 
engaged to the pretty niece of her Aunt 
Agatha.” 

“See here, Nancy,” and John’s mouth set in 
the sort of line that tells of having thought 
something out to a definite end. “That has about 
reached a point of ‘damnable reiteration.’ ” 

She looked at him and laughed again. “Cross- 
patch !” But her lightly poised lines had uncon- 
sciously taken on direction, and turning from 
the fireplace she faced him squarely. Her laugh 
stayed to make light of what she knew was heavy 
enough. “Johnny, you are not properly in 
love!” 

John stood for a moment with his back to her 


74 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


and his arm on the shelf over the fireplace, then 
turned slowly and looked at her. 

“Are you not forgetting yourself?” he asked. 
He was determined to stand no more of her opin- 
ions about his affairs. 

“I?” she questioned, wide-eyed. “What have 
7 to do with it?” She paused and the serious 
mood seemed to hover over her face. They were 
like butterflies, her moods, and fluttered near, but 
seldom settled upon her. “Don’t misunderstand 
me, Johnny. I like Catherine Gage; I even 
think she will have a great deal more to get used 
to than you will. Poor girl!” she smiled. “She 
is cut out to be the usual wife, but you? John, 
you are not usual and you can’t be, though 
you lash and prune yourself till you bleed to 
death. I know you. I do hate to see you make 
a mess of things. If you’d just be yourself 
you’d be so much nicer.” 

“You are flattering,” said John, sarcastically. 

“Dear, no,” protested the girl ; “I couldn’t be 
that if I tried. But you know very well, John, 
that she does not care for your work and she 
wonders why you don’t do fashion-plates with 


75 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


funny perspectives and bewitching young men. 
Oh, John, I’ve no patience with you. You are so 
blind.” 

“I think, Anne, that I am able to attend to 
my own affairs,” he said testily. 

“You are mistaken about that, John.” She 
looked at him with a mock solemnity that made 
him laugh, but not for several moons after it was 
said. He was too angry to see, and he felt in a 
fury that he must endure all this because a 
woman was speaking. 

“All the little things you care so much about 
and that are so necessary for your work,” she 
went on, as if she were thinking the thing out 
almost impersonally, “she will be so blind about. 
They will irritate you almost to despair ; and the 
sad thing is that they are things she can’t help ; 
she can never understand; she hasn’t the brain. 
Her brain is another sort. It comprehends gilt- 
legged furniture and flowered wall-hangings. 
She’ll goad you to work faster and faster, per- 
haps for an expensive but becoming hat, Johnny. 
The useless stupidity of the sacrifice !” She 
sighed with her eyes on the fireplace. She took 


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A GINGHAM ROSE 


off her own hat and held it on a finger-tip like a 
juggler. 

4 4 You have no idea, Johnny, what the Cath- 
erines in this world pay for their hats. You 
are in the rapt stage where you are blind to 
prices. John,” she threw the hat aside and 
looked him straight in the eyes, “I simply can 
not abide the possibility of your not coming into 
the best you are capable of in your work. If 
you go on with this thing you’ll end hopelessly 
by breaking your own heart and Catherine’s, too. 
She’s in love with success, not with you. She 
can’t be in love with you; she can’t understand 
you ; you are as good as strangers !” 

“Anne Preston,” and John’s tense hands and 
face told that he was roused in earnest, <4 if you 
were a man I’d knock you down !” 

The girl recoiled as if he had struck her ; her 
eyes filled and her mouth quivered, but in a mo- 
ment she repossessed herself and stood to her 
inches, looking him back bravely. “I care so 
much, John, and I am so sure that I am right that 
I don’t mind seeming rather a coward in taking 
advantage of being a woman. Besides,” and 


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A GINGHAM ROSE 


she laughed whimsically, “being knocked down 
is not the worst thing in the world !” 

His nerves tingled under the reproof and his 
hands relaxed. Then an idea took hold of him 
and he watched her as if fascinated. “Anne,” 
he said in a low voice, moving toward her, “why 
do you care like that?” 

The girl locked her hands tight and returned 
his look steadily. 

“You have not answered me, John Warren. 
If Catherine Gage were an obscure girl, — and 
that is what she would be, stripped of her good 
clothes and her manners, — would you still want 
her for your wife? Think, John; for your own 
sake you must think.” 

“You women are cruel to one another,” he re- 
torted with a laugh, but he turned his eyes away. 

Anne’s hands went up to her throat. She re- 
alized what she had been saying and she was ter- 
rified. But above the terror she had seen some- 
thing. He had looked away, he had evaded an 
answer. The crowded, jarring, wonderful mo- 
ment crushed her and gave her back her life all 
at once. “John,” she urged in a broken voice, 
“you must not do this thing. You know it must 
78 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


end as I have said. You can’t be more shocked 
at all this than I am. I did not mean to say it ; 
but I am glad that I have.” 

John turned away from her bruskly. “Put 
on your hat, Anne. We must get out of this; 
we need sunshine. Come.” 

Anne glanced in a mirror as she fastened on 
her hat. Two bright spots were burning in her 
cheeks and something unconquerable back of her 
eyes was making them gleam. 

“Becoming to me, getting excited, isn’t it?” 
she laughed, feeling for the old careless ground ; 
but the laugh reeled and tottered, for the care- 
less ground was nearly passed. 

“Everything is becoming to you, Anne,” 
sighed John. “But that does not particularly 
help me.” 


79 


CHAPTER VI 


The forests had done it ; there they stood ; 

We had caught for a moment the powers at play : 
They had mingled us so, for once and good, 

Their work was done — we might go or stay, 

They relapsed to their ancient mood. 

— Browning. 

They walked over to the car without speaking, 
the late afternoon air pressing in on John’s 
brain, while Anne’s feet seemed scarcely to touch 
earth. Something, she dared not even whisper 
to herself what it was, had been revealed to her, 
and she knew by the tingling of her blood and 
the beauty of the day that nothing else was of 
any consequence. She was absurdly poor and 
growing poorer ; there was nothing certain about 
her future. She was wearing made-over clothes 
for the first time in her life, and she laughed to 
see how unimportant such things really are. Oh, 
for the matter of that, she’d make them over and 
over again ; and an idea of how to get something 
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A GINGHAM ROSE 

effective out of an old green silk ran dizzily 
through her head. 

Above all things she was amused at John’s long 
face. Why take one’s self so seriously? It was 
so conceited to go bothering about a mite like 
one’s self ! She all at once saw new promise in 
her work, felt a joyous rush of faith in herself; 
life was surely full to reeling with golden possi- 
bilities. And all above and about was the beau- 
tiful, sun-soaked, wise old world; the dear old 
great-great-great-grandfather world ! Every- 
body’s worthy ancestor ! People in passing 
turned for another glimpse of the vivid face and 
went on their way building absent-minded air- 
castles about her, about the two of them ; for, of 
course, the young man was in love with her. 
Who would not be? Idle guessing follows its 
idle plan in building the kind of truth it cares 
to see. 

As they rode up-town Anne turned her face 
back to the manufactured breeze of the swiftly 
moving car. John watched her curiously. “Do 
you know, kid,” he said, “you are rarely pretty 
to-day ?” 

“And do you know, John,” she admitted con- 
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A GINGHAM ROSE 


fidentially, “I am feeling rarely pretty to-day. 
Do you ever have days, John,” she laughed low, 
“when your belt-pin won’t stay, and your back 
hair won’t do? Well, this is not one of those 
days !” 

“Maybe not, for you,” smiled John. 

The girl’s mood was too strong, too exuberant, 
to take note of anything outside its own current. 
“Was the air ever so mellow?” she asked, shut- 
ting her eyes and holding on to her wide hat. 

After a long ride they climbed off the car 
and turned into the park. At once the rattle and 
noise and glare of the street seemed as far away 
as the sudden coming into the sunshine had made 
the unexpected scene in the studio seem. The 
red eye of the going sun glinted and glanced 
through the thick trees, the faint breeze that 
foretells night was stirring and creeping stealth- 
ily among the rushes and papyrus and playing 
fantastically in the deep border of elephant-ears 
along the margin of the lake. 

“Truly, a golden day, Nancy,” and John 
rested his hand lightly on her arm. “But, bless 
you, no one ever needs to tell you things like that. 
You can see for yourself.” 

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A GINGHAM ROSE 


“I do believe I can,” she admitted boastfully. 

“You seem so absurdly little in this big place,” 
and in spite of himself he laughed down into her 
eyes. Everything whispered to him that he was 
on dangerous ground; but Anne was so pretty 
to-day, so human, and just this once — The 
girl flushed and walked faster. 

“That is a stunning dress you have on to- 
day,” he persisted doggedly. “Manet would 
either have lost his head or painted his master- 
piece if he’d seen you as you are now. He 
might have done both !” 

“Then it seems not so bad to look ‘absurdly 
little,’ ” she admitted. 

“Now, if you would just cultivate a habit of 
acting as little as you look you’d be a fairly nice 
sort of girl,” John sighed. He glanced away 
across the lake to the wide stretches of green be- 
yond, and wondered what was possessing him to 
talk so to the girl. Things were certainly bad 
enough as they were. But she was beautiful to- 
day, and so was everything. He would not let it 
happen again. Always picture-making of every- 
thing about him, he wondered what the effect 
would be if she were to go down by the lake 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


among the tall elephant-ears. It might change 
the drift of things. “Run along down by the 
water, little girl,” he laughed, “and coax the 
secrets out of the elephant-ears.” 

She hesitated a moment, then the fantastic 
notion caught her up and she ran and bent her 
head above a great wide leaf. “Oh,” she 
laughed with a glance at John, “I’ll be never so 
persuasive !” 

“The poor elephant-ear!” sighed John with 
half-earnest sympathy. 

Then Anne listened close, with a hand raised 
to warn John to silence. 

“The leaf says,” she began in a tone of con- 
spiracy, “that Anne and John are a pair of blind 
babies, or that, perhaps, they are not really 
blind, but like all the other grown-up babies, 
they are just pretending. It says that it is a 
very wonderful world when one comes to be as 
wise as an elephant-ear. And it says that John, 
especially John, is afraid to know things as they 
really are, and that Anne, being a very little girl 
in a very big world, does very well to be afraid. 
It says, Johnny, that little girls and elephant- 
ears have to be so careful about really-truly 
84 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


things because their feet are fast and their heads 
get so easily blown off in the wind.” 

John stood silenced, amazed and wondering 
anew at the wayward instinct of the girl. 

“Why, Johnny,” she laughed, “this must be 
a lady elephant-ear, because I heard a distinct 
giggle, and she says ‘P. S.’ She wishes to add 
that she does not set herself up to be wise about 
everything, nor would she for worlds presume to 
advise, but, considering all things, she for one 
would rather get up on her toes now and then, 
even at the risk of getting her head into the wind, 
than live all her days like a plebeian garden- 
cabbage. She says, too, that John, being a very 
big young man, with very big hands and feet, 
ho-ho! may take bigger risks in the wind than 
most young men and with not so much danger to 
himself after all. And she admits that on sec- 
ond thought Anne might just as well put up 
her head and be looking about, for she never 
was a girl to believe anything simply because she 
had been told. Why, John Warren, the saucy 
thing yawned right in my face !” 

“You see, you should have let me do the talk- 
ing,” boasted John. 


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A GINGHAM ROSE 


Anne was still a moment, listening, then she 
fairly chuckled with delight and held the big 
leaf close to her face like a cup. “She says, 
Johnny, that she has heard a great many men 
talk in that way before, and that it always 
amuses her so, because, tied here in the hollow, 
day in and day out, she has learned not to be 
disturbed by the boasting of young men, for — 
just listen to this, John — through this very 
boastfulness, if we but manage adroitly, we can 
make the bragging ones tell us the secrets the 
world tells them and keep our loosely-put-on 
heads comfortable, too. Wait! She adds that 
we must be looking to our hearts, however, be- 
cause masculine boastfulness so often sounds for 
all the world, to little girls in big parks, like 
strength. She says that one learns to be quite 
a philosopher, living between the park benches 
and the fishes and that — what?” and Anne bent 
her head very low to listen; “she says, Johnny, 
that she guesses that Anne, being a human, must 
be very hungry by this time.” 

“Nancy, Nancy, how many-sided is your tal- 
ent!” John sighed, while a thought, quick as a 
streak of scarlet vine over gray rock, crossed 
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A GINGHAM ROSE 


his made-up mind. Was the girl not worth the 
sacrifice of certain things, after all? Her tact, 
her color, her insight, her impulsive heart, her 
generosity, her ability — all the little leaves and 
tendrils of the bright-red vine were clear to him 
for one moment. But clever people, like John, 
people a little short of genius, perhaps not so 
much by limitation as by an unwillingness to 
submit to a complete singleness of purpose, walk 
much of their lives along the very brink of big 
truth. Cleverness is selfishness and self-con- 
sciousness, and either of these dims the face of 
truth. So he let the good moment go by. 

They hurried laughing and talking lightly 
up to the inn and took possession of a little table 
by the veranda rail. “We might be on a boat,” 
she said with a sigh of contentment, as her 
eyes swept the great spaces of shadowy green. 
“Wasn’t it Stephen Crane who called that look 
of things,” and she waved her hand toward the 
sward, “ ‘a sea of grass’ ?” 

The waiter obtruded the card between them 
with commercial obsequiousness, and they smiled 
at the incongruity. 

“Too hot for much, John,” she suggested. 

87 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Just cold things, don’t you think, except coffee ? 
I want to live, not to eat.” 

“How about cold lobster?” smiled John. 

“That,” she admitted, “is a compromise.” 

“And some ale?” 

“I hope so.” 

When the lobster came she looked very seri- 
ously at John. “Now,” she said, “if you cheat 
me of my half, by as much as a claw, I shall stop 
by and tell the lady elephant-ear. She will 
scold you properly, too, because ladies with hy- 
phenated names are always mighty particular 
about such details.” 

“And I have been thinking it over,” laughed 
John, “and I am of the opinion that she is not 
a fit person for you to know. She talks too much 
for her size.” 

“Humph!” and she put her small chin into 
the air. “And you? Shall you cut her, too?” 

“That’s different,” said John. “There, little 
girl, is your lobster, and remember, lobster is no 
predigested package of health-food.” 

So for an hour they juggled fun back and 
forth, forgetting everything but the joy of be- 
ing alive, hungry, and with what they liked to 
88 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


eat before them. Then came the coffee and 
John’s cigarette, and as the waiter held the 
match between them they laughed at each other 
in the weird flash of light. A curious, telling bit 
of painting it is that the little matches with their 
brushes of orange flame do here and there in the 
dark night on pairs of undecided faces. 

“Finished?” asked John, after a while. 
“Let’s get out in the night. It’s deliciously 
cool out there.” 

They crossed the brilliantly-lighted veranda 
with its incongruous human burden and moved 
slowly down the steps, then came to a stop in 
the middle of the driveway, wondering which 
path to choose for a walk. Destiny swooped 
and, catching up the pause as her cue, found a 
way for them. Out of the night came a rushing 
trap driven by a girl in white. John threw 
his arm about Anne and ran with her, and 
none too soon. The girl driving and the man by 
her side looked back and laughed; so much 
Anne saw in one swift, backward glance. The 
ground sloped away suddenly before them and 
they could not, would not, stop until the level 
brought them up beneath a great spreading 

89 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


black tree. In the thick dark the boy’s arms 
closed about her and, blindly self-amazed, he 
kissed her. 

“Anne, Anne, kiss me,” he whispered. 

“No, no, no,” she sighed and her eyes sought 
his aghast. 

“But you will, Anne, you know you will. Why 
not now?” 

Her girlish hands closed with gentle force 
about his face as in the twilight they had closed 
about the great leaf. 

“John, dear,” and her voice was very low, 
“you know you may not kiss me. You are for- 
getting — Catherine.” She scarcely breathed 
the girl’s name and her eyes filled with the rush 
of pity that came over her for Catherine and 
herself. 

John’s arms fell to his sides and he bowed his 
head to the girl’s shoulder. She stood stroking 
his face absently. He seemed all at once so 
much younger than she, and the woman born in 
her of the strange moment realized vividly how 
his mother must care for him. 

“What must we do, Anne, dear? I can’t 
think.” 


90 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“We must go home,” said the girl. 

“Yes, I suppose we must,” he answered auto- 
matically. 

They moved slowly away from the shadow of 
the tree to the path by the lake. The clang of 
the cars as they approached the entrance jan- 
gled on the girl’s senses. She paused and laid 
her hand on John’s sleeve. 

“The lady elephant-ear is sighing, John. Do 
you hear?” 

“Oh, Anne, don’t.” 

“She says, John, that strange things happen 
in this world all in a flash, sometimes, a flash that 
lets even little girls see ever so far, perhaps far- 
ther than men ever do. And, John, she says no 
doubt it would be all for the best if little girls 
would remember, but that memory never has 
been the biggest part of little girls. They have 
to learn their lessons over and over again.” Her 
voice broke. 

“Can you ever forgive me?” whispered John. 

“She says that men are always sorry like 
that,” and a smile as wan as heat-lightning 
played over the girl’s face in the night. “Be- 
sides, there is nothing to forgive. I think we 
91 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


must really have known all along that it would 
happen. But, perhaps, after all, it was just 
the work of that big, terrible, black tree; and 
you and I had very little to do with it.” 

Then they walked along in silence to the gate. 
The big brooding park and the girl’s sick heart 
sent line after line of the Drama of Exile reel- 
ing through her head: 

“Dost thou know 
Aught of their futures? 

Only as much as this: 

That evil will increase and multiply 
Without a benediction.” 

From the depths of her soul she begged again 
and again the next line, — 

“Nothing more?” 

And always the answer mocked her — 

“Why so the angels taunt. 

What should be more?” 

All the way down-town she sat with wide eyes 
looking into the city night, for when she closed 
them she could remember what she told herself 
she must forget. She was so tired, and more 
92 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


discouraged than in all her life before. She re- 
belled against herself, against John, against the 
force of things she had failed to meet. She told 
herself bitterly that she had not really tried. 
She smiled with a new cynicism as she remem- 
bered how only a little while before she had been 
so thankful just for being alive, how she had 
dared believe in herself. She wanted now, above 
all things, to be away from John, to be alone. 
She nearly hated him. She wanted to live over 
again the whole day, to see, if she could, what 
there was left. 

When they got to her door she took the latch- 
key out of John’s hand,* she dreaded his doing 
the least thing for her. She wanted to get to 
her own room. 

She ran up the dark stairs and through the 
halls safely, as a drunken man senses his way. 
She unlocked her door, and, closing it quickly 
behind her, locked it again from the other side. 
She leaned back against the white panels with a 
great sigh. 

The maid had been in and lighted the gas and 
left it turned low, so that she need not come into 
a dark room, and she could see herself dimly in 
93 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


the long mirror that hung on her closet door. 
The little room was stifling, and she pulled off 
her collar and unfastened the throat of her 
dress, and always she kept her eyes on the eyes 
in the glass. She put out her hand, watching 
the reflected jet of light, and turned the gas on 
full. So she stood a long time, her dark head 
held straight against the white door, eyes search- 
ing eyes mercilessly, truth for once given no 
quarter. Slowly she moved forward, fascinated, 
irresistibly drawn, until, with a smothered cry, 
she put her hands over the eyes in the glass and, 
dropping her head on her arms, sank slowly to 
the floor in a miserable heap of humiliation. 

“Oh,” she moaned, “you ha^ie lost him now, 
lost him. You have made yourself cheap. I wish 
I had kissed him ; I never may again. Oh, John, 
dear,” she cried, “I am so alone; you must, you 
must understand!” The storm broke, for the 
little girl had got her head into the wind. 

The pale dawn had begun its work with real- 
ity when drowsiness overtook her. In the half- 
light it seemed to her that all her “book-people” 
were standing about the room whispering to 
one another that she had been untrue to them. 
94 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


She turned her tired head on the pillow and 
promised, “I will be true from now on ; I will, I 
will.” 


95 


CHAPTER VII 


“ — yet more was to learn.” 

For three long weeks Anne heard no word of 
John. After the first miserable, restless days 
her good sense and health rebelled, and hope 
lifted her head. Her work was the resource that 
came to the rescue. The rejected manuscript 
rested undisturbed in the green pasteboard box 
under her bed. She did her best to put all 
thought of John away with the story. For John, 
though he did not know it, had suggested the 
theme of the story, to her indignation, and now, 
more than ever before, it seemed impossible to 
take it up. Besides, she was learning things. 
She went at some short, simple themes with 
energy and persistence and was able after a while 
to see through them a certain gain of patience. 
But “patience” is always expensive, and to smile 
through tears is no such fun, after all. 

Anne was younger than she dreamed, and the 
patience was just numbness disguised for the 
96 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


occasion. The world in its new and enormous 
aspect was teaching her that handling and ex- 
perience have something in common, and she was 
low with humility. 

She contented herself with dreaming over the 
big things and the rejected book, and worked as 
she had never worked before. It was no less than 
a revelation to her how well she got on without 
John. She deliberately made her life severe, 
getting comfort out of making long hours a 
kind of penance for unanalyzed wrong-doings. 

Her room was at the top of the house, and 
while the regular boarders were out of town and 
the house filled with transients or busy people 
who were out all day, with the south window open 
and the door wide, the place became not only 
livable but attractive. It is an interesting thing, 
the courtesy with which the plainest room as- 
sumes the personality of its guest. 

She spent the late afternoons and the twi- 
lights walking in the park. She avoided the 
lake without owning it to herself. It was amus- 
ing being lost, buried alive, in the great throng 
of gay, friendly summer people. She reveled 
in the mood of the onlooker, learned something 

97 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


worth while every now and then, too. From the 
habit of watching others she got into a way of 
watching herself, then the whole scope of exist- 
ence became a big iridescent bubble, a symbol 
wrapped in the story-maker’s haze. 

Living in shadows and fancies, she ended by 
taking herself for a shadow, a fancy. So far as 
John was concerned it was as if she had sounded 
him once for all, had met him in a clear light, 
face to face, and had found him — a shadow. 
She felt sure she could pass him in the throng 
without a quiver. She told herself that she had 
known all along that one day there would come 
a test and that she would lose in the balance 
against Catherine and all that Catherine stood 
for. She smiled with self-contempt to see how 
she had gone on answering the “small voice” 
with the inconsistent faith that John could not 
be unfaithful to Catherine, no matter what he 
was to her. 

The acknowledged insincerity turned the days 
into months and the nights into years, and she 
grew older than John would ever be. What had 
been a kind of humanized adoration for the boy 
had burned itself out in a flare, and in the long 
98 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


moment of light her eyes held after the flare she 
comprehended a kind of patience all-feminine 
and a mother-like sympathy for what she saw the 
man was inevitably growing to be. So, watching 
shadows, mistaking clouds for bubbles, seeing 
herself and the rest of her fellow creatures mere 
children of “fate,” she bridged the gap. She 
played at the game of self-cheating and took 
half-truths for a tonic, and it was no less than 
wonderful how her cheeks bloomed on in the face 
of blighting conviction. The keenest sense of 
humor goes napping when its master needs to 
grow. 

She came down to early breakfast one late 
summer morning giving out the kind of glow 
that can emanate from nothing in the world but 
a healthy self-respecting young girl. The jaded 
summer boarders looked, then looked again. 
The house was filled with “substitutes,” people 
who make a week’s living at a time and descend 
from Harlem to the Fifties, trying earnestly, by 
a jump from the frying-pan into the fire, to be- 
fool themselves with reflected glitter and reduced 
rates. Anne found them amusing, but a trifle 
disconcerting. They had a way of forcing real- 

99 


L. of G. 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


ity that was both tactless and uncomfortable, 
and out of harmony with the life of a dreamer 
and a bubble. 

One glance at the letters by her plate set her 
heart thumping; there was the long expected 
and much dreaded letter from John. She won- 
dered, a little bitterly, why it had to come at all 
after all this time. There was one from Victor, 
too ; it was a very long time since she had heard 
from him. The third was from the publisher to 
whom she had sent her latest short story. At 
least it was not the story back again, but she 
could not believe it possible that she had had a 
story accepted at the first place it was offered. 
She wondered if perhaps she had come to a turn 
in her long lane. 

Opposite Anne sat a young man with his 
throat upholstered in a tone-poem tie and his 
shallow eyes blinking at her with frank curiosity 
over his morning paper. The young woman by 
his side glanced up from the column she was 
reading over his shoulder and giggled at Anne. 

“It’s a mighty bad sign when a young lady 
keeps her letters to read by herself,” she sim- 
pered. 


100 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Anne smiled patiently and turned her letters 
over, considering each one carefully. 

“Well, I’ll clear myself of suspicion by read- 
ing this one at least,” and she tore open the en- 
velope from the publisher. There was a fair- 
sized check inclosed for the story and a flatter- 
ing request to see more, “shorter preferred.” 
“Just my wages,” she said to the young woman 
who worked “down-town.” “The only real dif- 
ference between your work and mine is that you 
always get paid and I seldom do.” 

“A regular job is the best way,” commented 
the young man of the tie, with the remaining 
third of his attention glued to the account of a 
current murder trial. The young woman felt 
somehow abashed and wondered rather resent- 
fully how Anne managed to look so “stylish” in 
cotton dresses and such faded-out colors. 

When Anne at last got back to her room she 
sat down by the window and spread the letters 
out before her. She was happy about the story ; 
it was nothing to have sent the others to five or 
six places before they reached their destinies, and 
she needed the money. But she was trembling 
to know what John had to say. The day had 
101 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


seemed so serene in the beginning and now — she 
was afraid again. 

“Well,” she sighed, “I won’t be able to give 
mj mind to Victor until I know the worst John 
has to say. Dear old Vic is used to waiting and 
this time he won’t know.” 

John’s letter was short, but it left the girl 
stunned. 

Dear Nancy : 

I am just in town again and hard at work 
after three blessed weeks in Vermont. I want to 
tell you before any one else is told that Catherine 
and I are to be married in October. Now be a 
good girl and write me how glad you are for me. 
By the way, Nancy, Catherine was as annoyed 
as I about her aunt, and she joins me in hoping 
that we are always to see a great deal of you. 
How are the stories coming on? If you will just 
get down to hard work you’ll make a go of it, I 
am certain. Come in to see me when you are in 
the neighborhood. I need your criticisms ; can’t 
get along without them, in fact. Let me know 
how you are. As ever, John Warren. 


103 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


The girl sat very still, her puzzled, hurt eyes 
staring back at the brazen strip of sky that 
shone above the row of brownstone houses oppo- 
site. 

“John,” she gasped, “how very sensible !” 
All the scorn her lonely life had gathered rose 
over her face like a cloud. “When in doubt 
take the trick,” she laughed harshly. “Oh what 
a fool I have been ! How does a man dare to be 
like that and go on living face to face with him- 
self !” She tossed the letter from her and eyed 
it with horror. But in a moment, her mouth set 
tight in pride, she picked it up and resolutely 
put it away in the box under the bed with the 
story. “I shall read it again and again so that 
I may never forget what a fool I am capable of 
being.” By her trembling mouth and hands it 
seemed that after all a “child of fate” could 
suffer on her way. Poor little Anne! 

“Dear Vic,” she breathed, coming back to the 
window and opening his letter. “You are worth 
a dozen of him.” It was not long before her 
sympathies had left her to wrap themselves 
about Victor, who was having troubles that made 
her own seem child’s play. 

103 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Vine Acres, Illinois. 

My Dear Nancy: 

Good and bad luck have come to me so close on 
each other’s heels since I last bothered you with 
my scrawling that I hardly know where to be- 
gin in the telling. We’ll take the bad first and 
have it over with, though I am afraid some of 
it is not to be so easily shaken off. You know 
as well as any one what February and March 
are in Chicago. This year they were even 
more vicious than usual, and they very nearly 
made an end of me. I had a cough when I saw 
you last; I remember you scolded me for not 
taking care of myself. When the cough was 
pretty bad I got a chance at some interesting 
work, newspaper stuff, cartoons and “stories,” 
and as it is the sort of thing I like best to 
do, I went in for it. That meant being out at 
all hours of the night, and as the weather never 
was known to give a fig for the feelings of a 
newspaper man, — we’ve got ’em, you know, opin- 
ion to the contrary, — I came in for more weather 
than I was worth. The doctors sat on my case, 
gloomy tribe they are! and pronounced me the 
victim of things of many syllables and pre- 
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scribed something known in the past ages as 
“rest.” I wrote my father and he made me 
chuck the whole game and come down home for 
an indefinite stay. We have a jolly place here, 
and I was cared for like a sick thoroughbred, 
which I am not, and of course I got along fast 
enough. By June I was pretty well mended 
and had my traps packed to get back to town, 
when my father was thrown from his horse and 
killed. I suppose it was the shock, for I was 
mighty fond of him, Nancy, and I had an awful 
hemorrhage. And, dear girl, but they do take 
the life out of a man; his nerve, too. Now the 
doctors have added a syllable and say that mere 
rest won’t do and that I must quit the climate. 
What is more, more honest, too, I decline to go 
in for a “short life and a merry one” myself. 
And it seems that a lot of people have been what 
they called “saved” by going in time, and as 
they all say I have a good chance it seems the 
only thing to do. It is a free country, you 
know, and I can come back if I don’t like it. 
The good luck, if there can be any in such a 
state of affairs, is that the estate is in beautiful 
shape and that I can do just what I like for the 
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rest of my natural life, be it long or short. I 
want to be certain, though, that Arizona is just 
the place, so I am coming to New York first to 
see Doctor Alexander Marr, who was a class- 
mate of my father’s at Harvard and who is 
away up as an authority on these little beasties 
that have taken such a shine to my system. 
What is more, I decline to go into exile till I have 
had a glimpse of you and Johnny. According 
to count, I reach New York next Saturday after- 
noon, and don’t be afraid to see me, for, except 
this hack I so tenderly cling to, you wouldn’t 
know there was anything the matter. I want to 
talk over your work with you. You know I 
always banked on you, Nancy, to make our days 
at school stand for something more than just 
cleverness. And I have been wondering — a sick 
man is selfish, you know — if there is a room to 
be had in your house? It would be jolly and like 
old times. But speak up if you are busy and 
would rather I went somewhere else. Only, 
please don’t, for the fact is I shouldn’t think of 
Marr and of taking the long way around except 
for seeing you. What is the use of having more 
pennies than you know how to spend if you can’t 
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A GINGHAM ROSE 


see the best girl alive? Could you let me know 
by return post? I am a lot of trouble, but I 
can’t help it this time. 

As ever, Vic. 

More than one crinkled, wet spot on the pa- 
per told its story of sympathetic eyes. Anne 
was shocked and terrified. In the bruises of the 
time everything ahead looked black and her 
troubles flocked about her till the daylight 
seemed shut out. For a long time she had real- 
ized that Ruth was slipping out of her life. 
Ruth loved her from habit and in spite of the 
fact that she did not understand her. Anne 
wanted to be loved because she was understood. 

Of John she did not dare let herself think, 
and now, Victor, big, awkward, gentle Victor, 
whom she snubbed, and slighted, and made fun 
of, was ill of a terrible disease, and maybe going 
to die. She realized how she had always counted 
on him, after all. It was too much, and she 
broke down in a storm of desolation. But this 
was Tuesday; he would arrive on Saturday; 
he must have an answer at once. She must not 
fail him now, — never again. Too much in 
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earnest to care if her eyes were red she took her 
letter down to the kitchen to find if he could 
have a room. That over, she hurried back to 
write her answer. 

Victor Dear: 

It was good enough to have a letter from you 
after all this long time, but the things you have 
to tell me about break my heart. You know 
how it was when my father died, — he was really 
all I had, — and I understood your sympathy 
then just as I want you to understand mine now. 
And you ill? That does not seem possible. Of 
course, I want you to come right here. I shall 
look after you every minute and make you take 
your umbrella and wear your overshoes though 
there is not a cloud in the sky. Telegraph the 
train so I may come to Jersey to meet you. I 
love the ferry-ride, you know. We’ll talk over 
everything under the sun. I can hardly wait to 
see you. Don’t sit by an open window in the 
cars. As ever, Nancy. 

When Victor read her letter, in spite of his 


108 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


six feet and an inch or two to spare, his eyes 
filled. 

“Bless the baby,” he smiled. “Never had 
a mother in all her life, and mothering me 
like that. By Jove, it’s not so bad, being told 
to keep out of the draft.” He telegraphed her : 

Arrive Saturday, two. Umbrella up, over- 
shoes on, window shut. V. 


109 


CHAPTER VIII 


Our business in this world is not to succeed, 
but to continue to fail, in good spirits. 

— Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Victor reached New York without mishap, but 
the very next day there occurred one of those 
hypocritical, smooth-faced, early autumn skies, 
and a drenching rain was poured down on the 
two young philosophers’ heads for nothing in 
the world, it seemed, but to show what a pretty 
sky can do when it likes, without a sign of 
rehearsing. A cold so serious resulted that 
Anne sent a messenger flying for Doctor Marr. 
He examined Victor, drew a long face, said one 
or two unquotable things under his breath, then 
insisted upon moving him at once to his sana- 
torium. His father’s son must have good care 
and under his own roof. 

Marr was in a great rage when he found 
that Victor had been caught out in a storm with a 
girl. He met Anne in the hall while they were 
110 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


getting things ready to move Victor and gave 
her a good scolding for having had a hand in 
such carelessness. He said one or two pointed 
things about “women, anyway” and “common 
sense.” 

Anne stood quite still until he had finished, 
then she raised her eyes to his. She was getting 
rather tired of being always in the wrong. 

“I am not a child, Doctor Marr, and what is 
more, I will not endure being spoken to in any 
such way. I would have given my eyes,” again 
she raised them that the old man might fully 
estimate the sacrifice, “rather than have had such 
a thing happen, and I venture to say that with 
all the fuss you are making you don’t care a 
tenth as much as I do right now !” 

The gray-topped man of science drew back 
and a long, low whistle of amazement made the 
silent hall eloquent. Anne looked up surprised, 
then something terrible seemed to be happening 
to her. To the shock of science, she put her 
face down in her hands and, leaning against the 
stair-rail, laughed till her eyes were wet. 

“Well, I’m damned,” he said profoundly. 
“Do you women all have — fits ?” There was mas- 
111 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


culine superiority unveiled in his very eye- 
glasses. 

“I guess we do,” she admitted with her hand 
on her side. “But you have no idea how irre- 
sistibly funny you looked whistling like that. 
I suppose,” and she made a frantic effort at 
composure, “it was imprudent of me to go any- 
where with Victor, even under a clear sky, and 
now I am being impudent besides. Oh, dear 
me,” she sighed. “I am so sorry, please?” She 
held out her hand with a baffling veer to shyness. 

The man struggled a moment, then gave in 
completely and grasped the small palm in his. 
“I — got caught out in that storm myself,” he ad- 
mitted sheepishly, and they both laughed. So 
began a friendship of squalls and tempests and 
bright sunshine ; stormy it was bound to be, but 
held well together by that surest of all ties, a 
sense of the ridiculous. 

“Victor says I am to come to the sanatorium 
as much as I like?” she asked. 

“Certainly, every day, all you like,” and with 
a grim smile he went back to Victor. 

The invalid was settled in a large south room 
with a comfortable couch drawn into the bis: 

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A GINGHAM ROSE 


bay-window. “Now, young man,” said Marr, 
gently, when he was comfortable, “you and I 
must do all we can to help the sunshine.” 

“Nothing but stubbornness could keep a fel- 
low sick with you and Nancy and the sunshine 
for medicine,” said Victor, gratefully. “Isn’t 
she a fine girl, though?” he said with the en- 
thusiasm that does not even consider contradic- 
tion. 

“Well,” said Marr, putting his hands in his 
pockets, “she has a way of making an old man 
think so.” 

But the cold grew worse and worse, and Victor 
and Anne were drawn to each other as they had 
never been before. Each was alone in the world, 
and the world is a good-sized place. In the 
anxiety and the new sense of dependence between 
them the girl’s natural affection developed into 
something entirely womanly and anxious to 
serve, while Victor’s school-boy love for the girl 
and her whimsicalities marched into adoration 
before the unexpected force of her tact and 
gentleness. She became to him a thing apart 
and unattainable. 

On the worst day of all, when life itself seemed 

113 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


hanging in the scales, Marr sent for Anne to 
come to his office. She came quickly, and her 
white face and fright nearly convinced the man 
that his surmises were right about what existed 
in the way of an attachment between her and 
Victor. He patted her hand a moment in his 
awkward way and the kindness broke through 
her control. 

“There, now,” and he turned back and w r alked 
to the window. “Perhaps it won’t be so bad, after 
all.” He was being a coward for almost the 
first time in his life. “But, Miss Anne, if the 
young man has any relations, and I know that 
he has, up in Vermont — I knew his father, you 
know — they should be notified of his condition 
at once. It is serious, little girl, mighty serious. 
Do you know his people? His — aunt, Mrs. 
Tyler?” he asked with a shrewd glance at Anne. 

“Yes,” she answered brokenly, the tears roll- 
ing down her face, “I know them. Oh, it is 
wicked that people who are young, and want to 
live, and might be useful as Victor might be, 
have to” — she could not finish, and all at once, 
without another word, she sat down at the doc- 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


tor’s desk and wrote to Catherine Gage. Then 
she went straight back to Victor and did not 
leave him until the crisis was past. 

Mrs. Tyler and Catherine came to town at 
once and drove out to the sanatorium with J ohn ; 
Catherine had wired him to meet them. They 
waited in the reception-room while Mrs. Tyler 
was invited into Marr’s office for an interview. 

Agatha Tyler and Alexander Marr had 
known each other ever since the man’s college 
days, when he had spent more than one vacation 
at the home of Victor’s father in Vermont. 
Something had gone wrong, no one but the man 
and the woman concerned ever knew what, but 
certainly there had been a “story” of one sort 
or another — a story that had “come out wrong,” 
with a resultant antagonism that time had failed 
to crumble. The first perfunctory hand-clasp 
and glance declared that the peace of silence 
was broken. It had been twenty years since they 
had met, and the change in each face gave its 
shock. But the spirit was as strong as ever. 

“You have been very kind to my nephew,” she 
said stiffly. 


115 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Possibly,” Marr admitted, “to the son of his 
father.” 

“I found your note at my hotel,” she said, 
flushing. “I am happy that the crisis is over. 
He continues to improve?” 

“Yes, oh yes,” said Marr, “I think there is no 
immediate danger.” He readjusted his glasses 
and watched the woman keenly. It crossed his 
mind that a man grows old more easily than a 
woman: there was a comfortable, if acrid, vic- 
tory in the idea. “But it will perhaps be as well 
if you stay in town for a few days. One may 
be well enough amused and your niece will enjoy 
the change from the country. Miss Preston 
and the nurse are all it is necessary to have in 
attendance.” 

“Miss Preston?” and Agatha Tyler raised 
her lorgnette and her brows. “What in the 
world has that impossible girl to do with Vic- 
tor?” 

“Surely you remember that it was she who 
wrote you of his illness?” The doctor was puz- 
zled. 

Mrs. Tyler had supposed the letter was from 
John and in the excitement of getting off had 
116 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


asked no questions. So Catherine was capable 
of duplicity ! After a moment of ill-concealed 
rage she decided that on the whole she respected 
the girl for it. “It had slipped my mind,” she 
added with stubborn, if rickety, dignity. 

“Something rankles here,” said the doctor to 
himself. “Agatha has been trying her tricks on 
these youngsters, hey?” He looked forward to a 
talk with Anne. Doubtless they would discover 
they had something more than temperament in 
common. “Really,” he said, with irritating be- 
nevolence, “I think we have Miss Preston to 
thank that he has pulled through. She keeps 
him alive by making him want to live.” He 
rubbed salt into the wound with professional 
adroitness. 

“Now that I am here, there will, of course, be 
no further occasion to impose upon her time,” 
said the woman, firmly. 

“On the contrary,” and his voice rose in pitch, 
“I am forced to be frank with you. Except 
Miss Preston, people irritate him extremely, 
dangerously, in fact. I must absolutely forbid 
any interference with things as they are. I beg, 
Madam, that you will show your customary — 
117 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


tact.” His mouth twitched slyly. “You may 
depend on me to inform you if your presence 
becomes necessary.” 

“Evidently I have presumed in my natural 
wish to be of service to my nephew,” and Agatha 
Tyler rose, a very mountain of wrath and dot- 
ted velvet. 

“By no means,” said the man, blandly, but 
rising with alacrity. “The case is simple. He 
is contented and too ill to risk a change.” 

She trembled in the effort to compose herself, 
and the j et butterfly on her bonnet seemed about 
to take flight. The man of science found him- 
self wondering what the bonnet and the woman 
would look like without the butterfly. She moved 
to the door with an expanding sweep of skirts. 
“I shall, of course, not return here unless it be- 
comes absolutely necessary.” 

“That is, certainly, for you to decide,” and 
he bowed low as he held the door wide for her 
to pass. 

“Come, children,” she said thickly to John 
and Catherine, who were “discovered” standing 
farther apart than necessary in the reception- 


118 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


room. As they passed out of the house, John 
caught a glimpse of himself in a false position 
and with no way out except by meeting violence 
with violence. In that he did not believe. John’s 
chosen mode of procedure was indirection; he 
detested a scene. 

Alexander Marr went back to his office and 
shut himself in. He raised his long arms and 
shook them as if his cuffs annoyed him, and 
paced about the room rapidly. Then he dropped 
into his armchair by the window. Time was for 
the moment annihilated. He rested his head on 
his hand and closed his eyes, tapping his knee 
with his glasses. He saw Agatha Tyler when 
she was still Agatha Stetson; he saw a country 
home and Vermont’s blue and violet hills. 
Agatha was a pretty girl, but fiery and self- 
willed and blind. The sunshine played impishly 
over his head and hands, throwing light on all 
the finely etched lines of time and living — or 
having lived. 

“Come in,” he said gently, in answer to a tap 
he knew on the door. 

“They have gone?” and Anne entered cau- 


119 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


tiously. “I listened at the door,” she admitted, 
“and I knew it could not be as still as that if she 
were here.” 

“Yes, they have gone.” He smiled and put 
his glasses on again. He felt old and did not 
rise. “Come here to me, Anne.” 

The girl came to his side and looked down 
on him curiously. 

“Why does Agatha Tyler dislike you, child?” 

Anne flushed and stood very straight. “Be- 
cause she is a hard, ugly, old woman,” she said 
firmly. 

“Mercy on us,” and the old man smiled 
grimly. “Can’t you rig the truth up a little 
more becomingly?” 

“Not this time,” and Anne smiled back with 
a youthful echo of the grimness. 

“Well, well, we seem to have another tie in 
common,” he said, getting to his feet. “Is Vic- 
tor still sleeping?” 

“I’ll go and see.” She laughed shyly and left 
the room. 


CHAPTER IX 


The lute’s fixt fret, that runs athwart 
The strain and purpose of the string, 

For governance and nice consort 
Doth bar his wilful wavering. 

— Sidney Lanier. 

Marr found his morning paper dull reading 
and threw it aside to ponder the more immediate 
problem of Anne and Victor. Mere politics be- 
came indigestible food for reflection to an old 
gentleman with two youngsters on his romantic 
mind. The situation was developing under his 
eyes; he saw, but he knew no name to call it 
by. To “pronounce” on a case had early be- 
come with him a habit, then a necessity, and 
finally a kind of mental dissipation. All the 
romance he had was a matter of deduction. But 
Anne was of “to-day,” and a very different 
product from the girls of his day, “of yester- 
day”; he ran his hands quickly over his gray 
hair. 

“Well,” he summed the question up at last, 

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A GINGHAM ROSE 


“if he isn’t in love with her he isn’t worth the 
trouble of saving, and if she is in love with 
him, then there is the devil to pay!” Anne’s 
faithfulness in rain or shine was a miracle to be 
explained on only one theory. He was able to 
guess what a woman in love would do from hav- 
ing learned rather violently what a woman not 
in love will not do. Though he reasoned by in- 
version, his conclusion must be right. 

The girl’s wonderfully intelligent hands and 
her sensible attention to his cautions against 
contagion indicated to his wonder and respect 
that here was a woman who seemed to have a 
mind all her own. And since she had dared 
laugh at him — “well, turn it as you will, she is a 
very remarkable girl, remarkable !” She always 
stopped in on her way up to Victor’s room for a 
“good morning” and news. He sat drumming 
his fingers on the chair-arms and turning the 
problem over till she arrived. 

“Doctor?” she pulled off her glove with boy- 
ish energy and held out her hand. 

He took the hand and held it absently. He 
was tempted to ask her frankly all about things. 
The time was coming when it mattered very 
122 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


much. He drew her over by the window and 
looked at her curiously. She stepped back, 
frightened. “Victor — is not — worse?” 

“No, no,” he said impatiently. “I’m a blun- 
dering idiot. I was thinking of something else. 
He is better every day, — and I was only wonder- 
ing.” The end was lame, and halt, and blind. 

“Wondering?” she echoed with a faint smile. 
“That isn’t like you, is it?” She was tired and 
the man had frightened her. She sat down in 
his chair by the window. 

Marr glanced at her sheepishly, but some- 
thing he caught about the look of her made 
him forget himself. He raised his head ab- 
ruptly. “You look as if you had not slept 
well.” 

“Well enough — but not very long,” she ad- 
mitted. 

“What do you mean by that? I’ll tell you 
when there is any occasion to worry.” 

His temper made her laugh. “I wasn’t wor- 
ried particularly,” she answered, “but I have 
to do my work at one time or another, and I was 
here all day yesterday, you know.” 


123 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Your what?” he gasped, sensing something 
new and hostile. 

“Surely you know — ” she hesitated. Then 
she sat up very straight and defiant. The man 
looked as if it were so easy to be successful and 
rich that the strain on her tattered self-respect 
hurt her and made her harsh. “I write stories 
for my living,” she said at last. It sounded so 
ridiculously inadequate! She blushed hotly. 

“You what?” and the man’s face was comic- 
ally eloquent of horror. “You — ” Then he 
laughed. “I think I see you, one of those flat- 
backed, flat-footed, loud-voiced caricatures in 
the Sunday papers!” 

“No,” she smiled patiently, “I’m not that; 
I am the thing as it really is.” 

The old face grew crimson. “Why, you lit- 
tle bit of a baby, you ! Now, I want you to go 
straight home and pack up your duds and come 
back here at once, and we’ll put an end to all 
this idiocy. I never heard of anything so pre- 
posterous in all my life!” 

The girl’s face shone: it was so beautiful, hav- 
ing a big, strong old gentleman care enough 


124 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


to get into such a rage. It made her eyes smart, 
too. 

“It is a fact, all the same,” she insisted gently. 
“No one would be poor if every one were rich!” 
she laughed. “And that would be mighty stupid, 
wouldn’t it?” 

“It’s rank injustice,” and the man paced back * 
and forth. His life for years had been filled 
with his work and his books, and, except in 
science, he had let the world pass by as it listed. 
The class Anne stood for was new to him. He 
took a chair and felt as limp as he looked. 
“Now, tell me all about it,” he said, determined 
to get at the root of the thing. 

She was very tired and preferred anything 
rather than talking about herself ; she was more 
tired of herself than anything else; but the old 
man and his temper amused her. 

“It isn’t really unjust,” she began. Her face 
was half thoughtful, half stubborn. “I don’t 
believe many people would do their work unless 
they had to. The people who are crying for 
Equality’ are generally just the victims of their 
own inability. Deliver us from the monotony of 


125 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


equality! I revel in inequality myself. And 
goodness knows I am low enough in the sky-line. 
But, you see, I find my purse going in defiantly 
for the levels, and that forces me to do my small 
best to continue a slight, but I hope picturesque, 
unevenness.” 

The old man winced. Her caustic sarcasm 
and the “old-young” look that rose over her face 
made him realize his impotency to bend the girl 
his way. She forced his respect. Suddenly he 
threw back his head and laughed. “You’re a 
fighter, eh?” 

“I suppose,” she smiled. “I always believed 
you have to earn whatever you get that is better 
than mere existence. The ‘silver spoon’ is noth- 
ing unless it is an interesting spoon. And, you 
know, I am rather a fraud, after all. I’ve 
enough money in the bank to enable me, if occa- 
sion demanded, to die decently. But I am so 
absurdly provident. I am always thinking of a 
‘rainy day.’ I can not happily eat up my last 
cent. I’d rather go hungry and have it to- 
morrow, for,” she laughed again, “if I am hun- 
gry to-day I am certain to be so much more 
hungry to-morrow!” 


126 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Where have you picked up all your wis- 
dom?” he asked, with no trace of a smile. 

“I didn’t pick it up,” she answered. “It has 
been beaten into me. It is what my pride has 
to believe if it is to live.” 

“Do you like to write, Anne?” he asked gin- 
gerly, as if in the presence of a newly discov- 
ered disease and determined to know all before 
committing himself. 

“Ah,” and she looked up with her eyes shin- 
ing, “that is another matter! I wouldn’t give 
it up for worlds. Writing and making money 
out of what you have written are two different 
stories. I have great hope of doing something 
really good one of these days,” she smiled with 
a little contradictory sigh, “because my stories 
are so hopelessly unpopular !” 

“By Jove,” and the old scholar’s eyes kindled, 
“you’ve the right idea!” 

“I suppose,” and she followed up her advan- 
tage on the stubborn clay she had in her hands, 
“that you feel the same kind of contempt for 
popular stuff in your work, too?” 

“Won’t put up with it for a minute,” he an- 
swered warmly. 


in 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“That’s all there is to tell,” she said finally. 
“Nothing’s done, everything in the world to do, 
and I with nothing in the world but to do it !” 

“I have no doubt you will do it,” said the 
man, utterly subdued. “I beg your pardon 
for—” 

“Now, please don’t,” she interrupted him. “I 
liked having you get into a temper about me. 
It’s good having some one care so much.” 

Marr diligently frowned down his feelings. 
Very few self-supporting young women had 
come under his observation, and he owned to 
himself that he did not understand. He had 
thought them all cut and dried and full of 
“opinions.” 

“I have always been a blundering ass with 
women,” he confessed with salty humility, “but 
I want to talk with you about the boy upstairs. 
That is what I started out to do this morning. 
He is better, Anne; no doubt about it; but he 
must get out of this climate before the cold 
comes on. How is it to be done?” 

Anne gave him a hurried, startled look, then 
her eyes traveled back to the window. 


128 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“You see,” Marr continued, letting his eyes 
follow hers, “the rains have begun.” 

She nodded. The rain was slanting across 
the window-glass and turning the pavement into 
a kind of misty mirror. “You mean,” she hesi- 
tated, “who is to go with him ?” 

“That is exactly what I mean,” he said. 

Perplexed and tired as she was, a gleam of 
fun shot across her face. “Won’t his Aunt 
Agatha feel it her duty to go with him?” 

“That woman?” groaned Marr. “Anne, 
Agatha Tyler and I have had a grudge against 
each other for nearly thirty years, and I do not 
mean to let her end by killing off my pet patient. 
She’d drive even me crazy,” he finished testily. 

“If you didn’t drive her crazy first,” she 
laughed. “I don’t know of any one else, except 
Catherine and John,” she added. She spoke ab- 
sently, words just a pretext to gain time for 
thinking, though the same question had been 
living in her mind for days. 

“Well, I don’t know John,” said the man, 
sharply, “but I know too many people already, 
so let us not interfere with the existing order of 


129 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


things. Victor is a fine fellow,” he added, watch- 
ing her shrewdly for a sign, a blush, perhaps. 

“He is, indeed,” she agreed serenely. 

He felt hopeless to understand. 

“Well,” he said, “Arizona it must be. It’s a 
wonderful climate — perpetual sunshine and blue 
skies. But, girl, the place is dead-alive, and I 
am afraid of the mental effect. I don’t dare send 
him out there alone. The trouble is that when 
he is very bad he is afraid of every one but me. 
And I simply can not get away.” 

“He is not afraid of me,” she said quietly. 

“No, he is not,” and the old eyes glared down 
on her most kindly. “I’d shut up the house and 
go out with him gladly, but for this crew of sick 
folk I have on my hands. There is no end of 
them just now, and I’ve got to submit to the 
majority. I’ll die in harness, no doubt, simply 
because some deranged crank imagines that I 
know my business.” 

“Sick people always do imagine things,” said 
Anne, sympathetically. 

“By George,” he laughed, pausing before 
her, “if you weren’t as pretty as a flower and 
just an infant, I’d forge you a nurse’s certificate 
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and send you out with him. You have too much 
humor ever to make a fool of yourself.” 

Anne flushed. “You have no idea what a tal- 
ent I have for foolishness,” she said, as she got 
to her feet and stood smoothing her gloves. Fear 
and courage were fighting a problem out in her 
heart and duty was looking on, grim enough. 
Two bright spots burned in her cheeks and made 
her eyes look feverish. Her mouth trembled a 
little now and then and her whole manner told 
of suppressed excitement. “Doctor,” she said 
at last, her voice seeming to her to come from a 
long way off, “may I send the nurse away for a 
while ? I have something important to talk over 
with Victor. I promise to be very careful about 
exciting him.” 

“But,” said Marr, anxiously, “there must be 
no question about it. It would not take much 
to send him past our help just now.” 

“I know that,” she said, moving toward the 
door like a sleep-walker. 

Marr was quicker and planted himself square- 
ly across her path. “What do you mean to do?” 
he demanded. 

She stopped and gazed at him half-bewil- 

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A GINGHAM ROSE 


dered. Then she laughed. Here was another 
obstacle. There was always some obstacle be- 
tween her and her duty. Well, he had called her 
a fighter: she would prove it. She astonished 
him with a sweeping bow of mock acquiescence. 
Then, with an exquisite smile, she tossed her 
head. 

“That, sir, is none of your business.” She 
tried to slip under his arm, but he caught her 
and held her before him. 

“You are scarcely dressed up to your man- 
ners,” he retorted, with an amused glance at her 
rain-skirt and felt hat. “And be assured right 
here that I shall not stir one inch till you have 
told me what you mean to say to my patient. 
Now, begin!” 

Anne gave a dramatic sigh, then deliberately 
took off her hat and coat. She drew up two 
chairs and faced them, then with great ceremony 
offered one to the doctor and took the other her- 
self. “I do hope I am not taking your time,” 
she said, settling herself comfortably. 

“Oh, not at all,” he responded grandly. “I 
can think of no pleasanter fate than an arm- 


132 


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chair with something good to look at. May I 
smoke ?” 

“If you must,” she condescended. Then there 
settled on the little office and the two stubborn, 
whimsical souls a silence as resigned as the peace 
of ages, while the clock on the mantel ticked for 
pulse. 

All at once the man rose and pointed to the 
door. “There! get along with you as fast as 
you can go !” 

Anne dodged under his arm and ran out with- 
out stopping to close the door. He followed her 
into the hall. At the landing she turned and 
looked back at him. The light from a high win- 
dow fell all about her. She looked so young, so 
small — something like pity tightened his heart 
for her ; he felt responsible. She waved her hand 
lightly, then turned and walked slowly up the 
stairs. 

He went back to his office and shut the door 
again. 

“She is the most likable girl I ever met,” he 
sighed, “but she has something uncommon in 
that head of hers to-day, and I don’t at all 
like the look of it.” He glanced at the clock 
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and took up his neglected paper. “Now, I shall 
give her just twenty minutes and then I shall go 
straight up there, and, what is more, I shall do 
just as I like about knocking. I intend knowing 
what is going on in my own house!” And he 
read his paper — backward, for all that he 
thought about it. 


CHAPTER X 


Well, now; there’s nothing in nor out o’ the world 
Good except truth ; yet this, the something else, 

What’s this then, which proves good yet seems un- 
true? 

— Browning. 

Anne was alone in the big quiet hall, face to 
face with that terrible ghost, herself. All the 
lightness died out of her and she dragged on 
slowly. The doubts and the hopes and the 
dreams she had won for a birthright, she could 
not guess how, brooded about her openly. She 
paused at the door of Victor’s room and faced 
decision. It was the last chance. She saw her 
future, two possibilities, wandering vaguely 
away before her, each full of chance, of peril, 
and of interest. Down one path she saw John, 
and he whispered to her again, “You will, Anne, 
you know you will. Why not now ?” Her eyes 
owned a longing, but she turned away resolutely 
and rested her face against the cool panel of the 
1 35 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


door. Then she chose, and knocked; three light 
taps were her password. 

The nurse opened the door and Victor raised 
himself eagerly for a look at the girl. 

“Good morning, Miss Anne. Mr. Stetson and 
I were growing impatient. We were afraid the 
rain was keeping you in.” 

Anne nodded and went straight to Victor. 
She took his hand and looked from it to his face 
quizzically. “Been getting plump over night?” 
she questioned. Then she patted the pillows and 
Victor’s eyes gave thanks. 

“Take off your bonnet, there’s a good girl, so 
a fellow can have a look at you. The storm has 
given you a regular bloom — ” but the last word 
broke in an ugly cough, dry and racking. Anne 
took the glass from Miss Evans’ hand and stood 
over him until he had control of himself again. 
“Miss Evans,” she said firmly, “Doctor Marr 
says I may talk with Mr. Stetson alone for a 
while this morning, perhaps an hour. I think I 
understand about the medicine. I have just left 
the doctor.” 

Miss Evans smiled her thanks and had quietly 


136 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


disappeared before Anne realized that she had 
taken one more step on her chosen way. She 
went cold as she understood that she was alone 
with Victor, had asked to be ; and something she 
had just given up cried out and echoed to the 
depths of her heart. She walked about the room 
half-blinded, trying to control herself, moving 
the chairs and rearranging the books on the 
table, — anything to gain time. 

“Even an old stick of a chair looks its best if 
you just move it about a bit,” laughed Victor. 
“What’s up, Nancy?” 

Anne pushed a chair up by his couch and 
turned it so that she must face the light. When 
she had a struggle to meet, with herself espe- 
cially, she did best if everything was against her. 
She dared not make things easy for herself. 

“What has old Marr been talking with you 
about? You look excited,” he persisted. 

“About you, Vic. He says you are better, 
ever so much.” 

“Oh, Nancy, are you sure?” and his eyes wist- 
fully searched hers for the truth. 

“Yes, sure,” she answered. “And if we can 


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A GINGHAM ROSE 


get you out to the land of sunshine before the 
bad weather comes you stand a good chance of 
getting as strong and well as ever.” 

“Nancy,” he began appealingly, “I have sim- 
ply not got the courage to face the journey.” 

“No one dreamed of sending you off alone,” 
she smiled. “That is what we were talking 
about. Would you be willing to go with your 
aunt, Mrs. Tyler?” She watched him closely. 

“I’ll not go with her, not one step,” he said 
firmly. 

“Is there any one else ?” she asked. 

He was silent a while. “Odd, isn’t it, that 
Johnny never comes to see me?” 

“I suppose he is busy. Doing extra work, 
more than likely. They are to be married in 
October, you know, and that is not very far off 
now.” She gazed into the crackling fire. 

“Well, I don’t need either of them, thank 
goodness,” he said crossly. He seemed to for- 
get everything else in watching the firelight on 
her face. 

“Would you be contented to go out alone ex- 
cept with a competent nurse — Miss Thompson, 
perhaps?” 


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A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Competent be hanged,” said Victor. “No,” 
and all the unreasonableness of illness was writ- 
ten on his face. “I won’t, I won’t go one step !” 
His voice broke weakly, but he hurried on. “I am 
a baby, I know, but some way I don’t care any 
more. The truth is that you are the only person 
alive, except Marr, that I care two straws about, 
and I can’t, I won’t go away from where you 
are. I should rather live a little while here with 
you than a whole stupid, good-for-nothing life 
of vegetating out there without you. Anne, 
please, please, please don’t let them take me 
away from you ! I am afraid to die, and I should 
have died weeks ago but for you. You’d put 
courage into a poor devil with a rope around his 
neck. You won’t let them take me out there, 
Nancy? You can do anything you try with 
Marr ; you know you can.” He put his big thin 
hand over hers and in spite of his struggles his 
eyes filled. A bad fit of coughing frightened 
her into the courage of brevity. She felt as if 
her pride was being killed by inches. “Anne, 
you’ll talk to Marr ?” he begged. 

“Vic, dear, don’t do that. They shall not 
take you away. They can not, because — ” she 
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A GINGHAM ROSE 


caught her breath at the plunge, “because I am 
going with you!” 

“But, Nancy — ” he began wonderingly, the 
blood rushing to his face. 

“Now, you are not to talk until I have fin- 
ished. I am as alone — more even — than you 
are; and there is no one who matters to me half 
as much as you do. And, Vic, if you have to go, 
I’ll be glad to go along and take care of you.” 
Her face glowed, but her eyes filled, and, slip- 
ping on her knees, she put her head down by 
Victor’s arm. 

Victor looked down on the smooth black braids 
and his dazed world went round ; then he put his 
hand awkwardly on her head. 

“But, how do you mean?” he asked gently. 
“Nancy, you know it would never do. I’d under- 
stand and of course I’d put cold lead through 
any one who didn’t ; but, dear, I’m not worth it. 
Before you are put in a false position I’ll brace 
Up and go by myself. And, Anne, I’m — not fit 
— to ask you — oh, little girl,” and the big boy 
broke down completely. Paradise was in his 
hands and he could not honorably take it. 

“Vic, Vic,” she begged, “I simply can not 

140 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


stand it to have you do that,” and she stood over 
him as his own mother would have done. 

“Forget what a weakling I am, girlie. The 
confounded disease takes all the sand out of a 
fellow.” 

“No, it does not,” she said stoutly. “It just 
gives him another sort of sand. But, Vic,” and 
her voice trembled again, “a girl always knows 
when a man — cares about her; even if he has 
never told her, she knows. She knows by in- 
stinct, I guess; and though I have treated you 
like a pickpocket ever since the day I met you, I 
really never meant anything by it. It seems to 
me I am always abusing the people I like best. 
Just the same,” and she suddenly lifted her head 
with the proud look of the old Anne he loved 
best of all, “Victor Stetson, if you argued a 
week you couldn’t convince me that you did not 
like me!” The return of her lighter self gave 
her courage and she hurried on: “I won’t pre- 
tend to be dead in love with you, Vic, but I am 
not with any one, so that’s no matter. And, Vic, 
if you like — we might — just for the sake of 
appearances, you know,” and again the proud 
little head was close to his arm. 

Ill 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Blessed little ostrich,” he smiled, daring now 
to stroke the braids. “Nancy, dear, no one ever 
had a more generous heart than you.” In the 
moment Victor had grown to manhood and his 
face was aglow with the new birth into responsi- 
bility. “You have taken me by storm, dear 
girlie, and I can’t think. Who could? Now, 
won’t you go over there by the window, where 
I can’t see you, for a while? There is so much 
to be thought of, do you know it?” 

“Yes, I do know,” said the girl, rising and 
looking bravely into his eyes; then she walked 
over to the window. 

“Nancy,” he called, in a very short time. 

“Yes?” 

“I believe I can think about as well if you are 
here.” She came at once, and there was a gener- 
osity about her every movement that told of a 
longing to wipe out all the years of tyranny in 
one big sweep. Victor took her two hands in his, 
and his face was fine with earnestness. “Nancy, 
it is not so easy to talk about. I hate doing it, 
but this thing has got to be looked at from all 
sides. You must not be blind to what you are 


142 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


doing. Dear girlie, do you know that this 
beastly disease of mine is contagious?” 

“Of course, I understand,” and her eyes were 
clear and frank. “I have thought of all that, 
too.” 

“Then, dear, till I am well it is just good 
friends?” 

“Yes, Vic. I can work out there as well, may- 
be better, than here, and you can help me. We 
won’t either of us be lonely then. That is what 
I meant, Victor.” Anne’s girlish dignity was 
beautifully pure in its sweeping over and be- 
yond the difficulties she could only guess at. 

“And, Nancy, if I do get well, and you have 
not come to care for me, or if there should be 
some one else, — we’ll find a way out.” He spoke 
low, and shyly rested an arm across her shoulder. 

The door into the hall swung back and there 
stood Marr, by every sign self-convicted. His 
gray eyes shone suspiciously, and because of the 
flood-tide in his heart his voice came masked 
hoarsely. 

“I have been standing by that door listen- 
ing to words of wisdom out of the mouths of 


143 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


babes and sucklings for — well, ever since it was 
decided that one of the babes could do any- 
thing she liked with Marr ! And very glad I am 
that I have a nature above mere scruples.” He 
glared at Anne from beneath his deep brows. 
“You little minx, go down to my office and stay 
there till I come.” 

Anne got to her feet and faced the contra- 
dictory old gentleman, and all the moods from 
anger to amusement chased one another across 
her young face. She ended by smiling adorably 
from one man to the other, then turned and 
walked to the door. “I’ll go,” she said over her 
shoulder, “but I am not sorry, and I do not take 
back a single word. What is more, it is not 
every girl gets accepted by the first man she pro- 
poses to!” 

“Humph!” ejaculated the old man, as he shut 
her out of the room. “She is a rum little devil, 
I must say.” He turned and looked at Victor 
quizzically. “If I am not wrong in my hearing, 
she has a heart too big for her little shoulders. 
I declare, I am half in love with her myself !” 

“Then,” said Victor, “the difference between 
you and me is just the other half.” He looked 
144 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


back at the man of science with a new assurance, 
as if from man to man. 

In the meantime Anne went slowly down the 
stairs. Out in the still hall the look of knowing 
more than experience could yet have taught her 
came back. She went into the office and sat very 
quiet with her eyes spread unseeingly upon the 
rain-blurred window. All at once they focused 
on a clear thought and she laughed. “It will 
absolutely annihilate Aunt Agatha Tyler! I 
think if I can just get that into the dear old 
man’s head he won’t make much of a fuss, after 
all!” 


145 


CHAPTER XI 


Ah, this parting with the flower for which I 
would so gladly have given my life has left 
my sleeves wet with the dew. 

— Japanese Woman’s Diary. 

The next morning was stormier than ever, and 
because of the weather, or because she did not 
think much about it one way or the other, Anne 
went over to the sanatorium in an old short skirt, 
a rather shabby jacket frayed in the facings, 
and a tam. The maid that let her in told her 
that the doctor wished to speak with her very 
particularly. 

“What have I done now?” she asked, looking 
up at him. 

He observed her with a critical air, then, nod- 
ding his old head wisely, he sighed. “Well, I 
held out hard against him, but I guess Stetson 
is right about it, after all. You are very good- 
looking.” 

“So sorry that honesty forbids me to recipro- 
cate,” she laughed, bowing low. “I seem to 
146 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


have heard you say nearly the same thing be- 
fore.” 

“Now,” said Marr, “I’ve been thinking what 
a wonder you’d be in fine feathers!” 

Something began rising in the girl’s throat 
and she dropped her eyes to her coat-sleeve. 

“I never succeeded in getting married my- 
self,” Marr laughed, “but even a bachelor hears 
a good deal about such things. I always read 
about weddings in the newspapers,” he con- 
fessed. “Sort of fairy tales, you know, and I 
have a reprehensible curiosity about things that 
are none of my business. Now, I have an im- 
pression that women always get themselves a lot 
of — fixings !” he ended, comically helpless, with 
his hands in the air. 

Anne collapsed into the nearest chair. “I am 
afraid that, after all, I can not afford to get mar- 
ried just now!” Her color was high and her 
mouth set tight. 

Marr winced. “Now, none of that ! I won’t 
have it.” 

“The whole thing is so out of the ordinary 
that I had forgotten all about ‘fixings.’ We are 
going into the wilderness, aren’t we? I shall be 
147 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


a nurse, not a fine lady, for ever so long. Be- 
sides,” the color rose again, “Victor doesn’t care, 
doesn’t even know, what I wear.” 

Marr put out his fine lower lip and marched 
up and down the room with his hands under his 
coat-tails. “Well, now, Anne, I am not so sure 
about that. What is more,” and he straightened 
his shoulders defiantly, “I care! I guess I have 
a right to give a girl I like a wedding present, 
haven’t I?” 

“Now, please — •” Anne began. 

“That is just the idea,” he laughed. “I 
please. You could not have put it better. Now, 
there are several days to spare, and I want you 
just to go round to the shops and get* what you 
like; buy ’em out,” he waved his hand grandly. 
“Then send the bills to me. That’ll be my pres- 
ent.” 

“Present!” she echoed. “I should think so. 
It is a wonder you have a cent to your name. 
I’ll do nothing of the sort. I could not !” 

The man stared at her so helpless and so dis- 
appointed that she laughed in spite of herself. 
Then an idea arrived for Marr. 


148 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Of course you could not, bless you ! I knew 
it all the time.” He went to his desk, wrote a 
check, put it in an envelope, sealed it and ad- 
dressed it elaborately to “Miss Preston, Kindness 
of Marr,” blotted it with dramatic attention, 
then rose and set it against the clock. He strode 
up and down the room, talking such a string of 
irrelevant nonsense that she laughed whether she 
would or not, and at the first smile he brought up 
suddenly before the clock, and, after investi- 
gating the time of day, his eye by obvious acci- 
dent lighted upon the envelope. 

“Well, I never!” he laughed; “if I wasn’t 
about to forget.” He turned toward her with 
the envelope in his hands and all the twinkle held 
well back in his eyes. “A blundering old imbecile 
friend of mine, whom I have never succeeded in 
shaking off, left this around here and asked me 
to see that it reached you.” He dropped into his 
chair and took up the paper again, — his usual 
refuge from annoyance and his resource in em- 
barrassment. “Now run along to Victor,” he 
said, turning to the editorials. 

To the utter discomfiture of the “old imbe- 


149 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


cile,” he found two arms about his neck and a 
shower of tears demolishing the poise of his 
collar. 

“Why, Anne, Anne child,” he said, awk- 
wardly patting her on the shoulders. “What is 
the trouble?” The girl could not find her voice. 
“Is all this too much for you, after all? Is the 
sacrifice bigger than you can stand? You know 
you can depend on me to help you, and Victor is 
no coward. Is it too much?” 

“Oh, don’t, don’t talk so,” she whispered. “I 
can’t stand another word. I’m not used to hav- 
ing people so good to me, and it just about kills 
me!” 

Marr’s handkerchief came out with brave os- 
tentation. “Well, you see, child,” he said gen- 
tly, “I haven’t had any too much chance to be 
good to anybody, either, so let’s just call it quits 
and begin all over. Humph!” he grumbled; 
“when Stetson sees your red eyes I’ll just about 
get discharged !” 


150 


CHAPTER XII 


Well, this cold clay clod 
Was man’s heart: 

Crumble it, and what comes next? 

Is it God? 

— Browning. 

“As it happened in your house, that makes it 
all your fault, and that makes it your duty to 
break the news to Victor’s aunt and your old 
friend!” Anne sent her shaft of logic on a 
smile up to the old man from her low chair by 
the fire. 

Marr was a lonely man and it had taken just 
these two “youngsters” — so he called them, a 
kind of tender disrespect — to make him acutely 
aware of it. 

“So,” he laughed, with fine irony, “I am to 
take my valuable life in my hands and tell her 
all about it !” He paced about the big room, the 
flying tails of his long black coat making him 
seem almost grotesquely tall. 

Anne was in a “mood” on this particular 

151 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


morning, and she sat a little apart in the shadow 
by the fireplace, absorbing the young man and 
the old man, the firelight and the daylight, the 
leaves of the maple beating against the window 
outside and the talk beating on the inside, every- 
thing and its manner of helping to make up the 
sense of the stormy day. She focused her eyes 
on Marr and rested her chin on her hand. 

“Do you know you have a forehead like a 
cathedral dome? I wonder how it happens you 
have kept so peppery living so long under a 
dome ?” 

The coat-tails paused in their flight and the 
eyes of science were bent curiously on the amused 
eyes of instinct. “Did you make that up?” he 
asked lamely. 

Anne laughed. “I can never tell about that, 
you know. I often find the best line I ever wrote 
in my favorite poet. But,” she added lightly, 
“even if I did make it up, I didn’t really.” 

“Now, what do you mean by that?” asked 
Science, humbly. 

There was curious openness about the look of 
her as she answered his gaze. “I think,” she 
said quaintly, “that there is some one who lives 
152 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


in the attic of my heart and the cellar of my 
brain who, when I now and then have the sense 
to forget myself, has something rather good to 
say. I am a very plain person myself,” she fin- 
ished, with a dramatic sigh. 

Victor smiled up at Marr. “Don’t nag her; 
let her be,” he said. “’She’s got her ‘writing 
devil’ along to-day.” 

The man of science slipped out of the room 
and left them as they were : Anne in the shadow 
seeing things in the fire, Victor seeing Anne, 
hoping for her things she seldom thought to 
hope for herself. God above, what a beautiful 
thing is pure, untried enthusiasm ! A flower it is, 
open to the sun — and the rain. 

Outside, by the little window on the landing, 
the man of science was wiping an unaccountable 
mist from his glasses. 

“I was rusting, as sure as my name is Marr,” 
he smiled. “Little beggar, — I am glad they 
have come.” He got into his rain-coat; he 
wanted to get out and fight the weather, to walk, 
to get fresh air, to swing along, free in the big, 
free world. “Ah,” he chuckled to himself, “I 
wouldn’t miss telling Agatha about this for 
153 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


worlds !” And Agatha, sitting alone in her hotel, 
in her stiff clothes, stealing a nap from herself, 
had not the slightest premonition of the ap- 
proaching enemy. 


154 


CHAPTER XIII 


Of ugliness — To me there is just as much in 
it as there is in beauty. 

— Walt Whitman. 

Marr was received with remote formality, all 
the subtile blamelessness of a polite snubbing in 
the air. Agatha Tyler’s hand was as limp as she 
dared to make it, and Agatha was no coward. 
The chair, permitted rather than proffered, was 
a triumph of gilt and brocade discomfort. There 
occurred a round of succinct generalities that bit 
like bullets ; then came the calm before the 
storm, the silent, gray space tainted with ex- 
quisite cynicism. The man of science opened 
hostilities with a storm of facts. 

“Madam,” he began, “I have the honor of an- 
nouncing to you the approaching marriage of 
your nephew to Miss Anne Preston. Unless 
there is a relapse, and there seems no occasion 
to fear the calamity, the wedding will occur in 
the young man’s room in my house next Wednes- 
day morning at half-past eleven o’clock. It 
155 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


gives me great pleasure to invite you and Miss 
Gage and Mr. Warren to be present. There will 
be an informal breakfast. Then in the after- 
noon they leave for Arizona, where, more than 
likety, your nephew will live in the future.” 

The bewildered woman sat staring straight be- 
fore her, breathless and sense-bereft. She at- 
tempted to speak several times, and at last her 
voice came forth like muffled brass: “Are you 
able to repeat this ridiculous news?” The four 
lively eyes were as flint and struck flame in pass- 
ing. Good fighters they were and this was the 
encounter awaited for twenty years. 

“Certainly,” he replied, with the patient smile 
he was wont to apply to amusing but harmless 
cases of hysteria. 

She rose to her feet and stood with a trem- 
bling hand grasping her chair. 

“Alexander Marr, if you dare repeat one word 
I shall ring and have you — ” Suddenly she col- 
lapsed. “Sit down, Alexander !” she commanded. 
“You exasperate me beyond endurance with your 
vagaries.” She sank heavily into her chair 
again. “Now,” and she tapped the table beside 


156 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


her with her small spangled fan, “be good 
enough to tell me the worst of this disgraceful 
affair.” 

“Disgraceful?” and the man’s eyes narrowed 
to a warning. 

“In my day,” she responded tartly, “a girl 
had not dared hang about a young man under 
such circumstances till, in common decency, he 
was forced to marry her.” 

“That will do, Madam,” he said sternly. “I 
will ask you to remember that your nephew and 
Miss Preston have been under my roof.” 

“Small credit to you,” she snapped. 

“I was never so proud of anything in my 
life!” 

Agatha Tyler smiled with derision. “We 
seem no more in danger of agreeing than twenty 
years ago.” She waved her fan. “To my mind 
the affair is disgraceful.” 

“The decision does your integrity small jus- 
tice.” 

Agatha flushed. “Arguing never was any 
use between us, Alexander.” Her eyes were on 
her fan, outwardly at least. “Tell me directly 


157 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


all that you know and I will not interrupt you 
again — till you have finished,” she added, then 
bit her lip at the slip and his smile. 

“Well, I judge from what I have heard and 
observed that your nephew has been in love with 
Anne ever since he first met her. I don’t blame 
him for that. He is, of course, not well enough 
to think of marrying under ordinary circum- 
stances ; at the same time his state of mental de- 
pression will not permit of his being sent away 
alone. He refuses to go, in fact, without her; 
says he would rather live a short time here with 
her, than a long time anywhere else away from 
her. She is a fascinating young woman, and no 
mistake. She has a natural skill ; her gentleness 
is a lesson, and her humor a joy. Of course, she 
may not go with him, except as his wife ; custom 
has done that much for us, and, no doubt, wisely ; 
so, they are to be married on a basis of friend- 
ship. It will be simply a contract arrangement.” 

“Friendship — fiddlesticks!” retorted Agatha 
Tyler, the red banners of outrage and embar- 
rassment waving frantically across her strong 
face. “And when he has recovered, what is to 
become of this high and mighty ‘friendship’ ?” 
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“That, Agatha, is to the best of my belief, 
entirely their own affair. I will add that I have 
implicit faith in their common sense.” 

“Man’s talk!” she commented cynically and 
with a grain of truth. “I agree with you, how- 
ever, that the girl is perfectly able to take care 
of herself.” 

“She is,” said Marr, “the first person I have 
ever met who is capable of true self-sacrifice.” 

“My nephew is very rich,” remarked the 
woman in a mimic-quiet tone. 

Marr fairly thundered: “And if he were 
ten times very rich he could never repay her for 
what she is about to do !” He pulled himself 
together with effort. “Victor is young and of 
fine fiber. He has his father’s sense of honor 
and is developing a discrimination as fine. Dis- 
crimination is valuable, Agatha, in these complex 
days. Anne, if any one, can lead him back to 
life; he loves the girl and it is for her he wants 
to live. He has yet to win the highest type of 
love from her — if it is the highest — I confess 
to doubts. But harm seldom comes to build on 
a foundation of candor. If marriage was of- 
tener based on candor and less often on senti- 
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A GINGHAM ROSE 


mental insanity the world would be the gainer. 
Have you nothing in your heart, Agatha, that 
responds to the rare romance in all this? You 
were not always so deaf to romance.” He leaned 
forward and smiled rather cruelly. “You 
have changed more than I, Agatha. Why,” 
and his keen face was suffused with glow, “these 
blessed youngsters have shown me a kind of up- 
liftedness I hadn’t dreamed of. Supposing I 
had gone into my grave without knowing?” He 
laughed like a boy. 

“You always were an enthusiast,” she smiled. 

“Well,” he spread his hands a little sheepishly, 
“enthusiasm invented automobiles and self-drain- 
ing flower-pots. It is a kind of propeller !” 

“Is Victor likely to recover?” asked Victor’s 
aunt, in a tone modulated by something beneath 
solicitude. 

Marr was a student of modulations and 
glanced at her shrewdly. “Nearly certain to,” 
he responded with cheer. “He has a fine consti- 
tution, is young and hopeful. But at present 
he demands something more than mere science. 
He wants sympathy and sunshine: that is why 
we have chosen Anne to take him to Arizona.” 

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A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Personally conducted by an heir!” she tossed 
her head. 

Marr laughed in spite of himself. “I believe,” 
he said thoughtfully, “that he will get well be- 
cause he deserves to. Do you know, Agatha, the 
older I grow the more I believe that people get 
what they deserve? You and I have rather 
missed it along the line of happiness, but that is 
no reason we need to add the crime of interfer- 
ence to the sin of having blundered. Why, since 
I have been permitted to know these two high- 
minded babes I know as I never guessed what 
my own life has missed. Here was I, blind old 
fool, walking stubbornly on the brink of things, 
nearly over, mind you, and with no conception 
of what a woman could be.” The deep old eyes 
looked through and beyond Agatha’s for a mo- 
ment. Suddenly he stiffened and rose, falling 
at once into the old formal manner. “Pardon 
my vagaries; I have taken too much of your 
time.” 

“Not at all,” she condescended. Then, with 
her eyes on the little fan : “Marr, is not the dis- 
ease very contagious? I have read so, it seems 
to me.” 


161 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Your solicitude is tardy. That, Agatha, is 
precisely where the girl’s heroism comes in. I 
have taken good care that they are neither of 
them blind to the dangers of the situation. I 
think I mentioned that the marriage is to be 
entirely civil. Sentimentality is not even invited, 
you see.” 

“It is perfectly shocking,” she said, danger- 
ously crimson. 

“Shocking?” and the old man’s eyes twin- 
kled. He stood tracing a big velvet rose in 
the carpet with his walking stick. “You see, 
the world has been moving by you and me, and 
young heads are wiser by a good many years of 
— enthusiasm! I hope you will all come on 
Wednesday. We must send them away as cheer- 
fully as possible. I know very well that in spite 
of all we can do the world is certain to seem a 
very big place out there in the desert. Will you 
not make an effort, Agatha, to see the little girl 
in a kinder light? It is a great many years 
since I have asked a favor of you.” 

For a space she wavered, but the crust of time 
is not to be destroyed in a moment ; it must dis- 
solve, bit by bit. The face grew hard, harder 
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A GINGHAM ROSE 


for its pretense. “I think — I am not capable of 
appreciating heroics.” 

The stick in Marr’s hand drove into the heart 
of the velvet rose ; then he said coldly : “Unless 
you are able to come in a kindly frame of mind, 
I beg to suggest that you do not come at all. 
Will you present my respects to Miss Gage and 
Mr. Warren, and say to them that I shall be 
very happy to see them in my house?” 

Then, in one of life’s saving but absurd re- 
turns to formality, the two cantankerous fighters 
touched hands and bowed, and in an instant the 
man had gone. 


163 


CHAPTER XIV 

Wisdom ye winnow from winds that pain me. 

— Sidney Lanier. 

The echo of Marr’s retreating step made 
Agatha’s nerves tingle again. She leaned back 
in her chair trying to readjust her confused fac- 
ulties. 

“Where is Catherine?” she repeated to herself 
again and again. She felt beaten and alone. 
“I shall suffocate in this stuffy place,” she 
groaned, striking her hand with her fan. Even 
the silly furniture seemed to take sides against 
her. She fumed that she had consented to stay 
in town after Victor was out of danger. “Cath- 
erine, always Catherine !” She was getting 
rather tired of being left alone with the new 
novels that John so thoughtfully brought to her, 
novels that any one could see through to the same 
sweet end from the very first page, while they 
were out having a good time. For a while they 
1 64 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


had insisted on her going with them. She had 
always graciously protested, and one day aston- 
ishment descended when they did not urge her 
twice. Since then she might as well have been in 
town by herself. 

She wished with all her heart that Catherine 
had chosen to marry some sensible, successful 
gentleman. She did hope all the things she had 
read and heard about artists were not true, but 
she had her opinion. “The years are running 
by you and me, Agatha,” danced across her 
memory and she flushed hotly. Then the door of 
the elevator flew back with a clang and through 
the open transom she heard the voices of John 
and Catherine. She sat up rigid in her black silk 
dress and the little fan winked and twinkled. In 
they came, their strong voices and ample young- 
American manners filling the room to overflow- 
ing. 

“Such a storm out, Auntie !” smiled Catherine, 
as John helped her out of her rain-coat. Then 
she stooped and kissed the woman’s unresponsive 
cheek. “We had a jolly luncheon and you’d 
have loved the play; so charming!” 

“I have been very well occupied with a per- 

165 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


formance of home talent;” and the spangles 
whizzed back and forth in streaks of light. 

“Only fancy Auntie stage-struck, John,” 
laughed the girl. 

“Take off your hat, child, and sit still : do, at 
least, make a pretense of self-control. And, 
John, stop staring at me as if my hair were not 
properly done! You are both noisy enough to 
shatter one’s nerves. I have news,” she finished 
ominously. 

“Victor is no worse?” asked the girl, quickly. 

Agatha Tyler started out of her chair. “I 
declare you will be the death of me with your 
violence. I don’t know whom you get it from. 
Victor is no worse, — in health!” She shut her 
mouth in the kind of line that says clearly that 
more might be told if she chose. John stepped 
directly before her with his arms folded and, 
with a directness not to be evaded, he asked : 

“Is there anything wrong with Victor ?” 

The spangles paused in amazement, and as 
she stared back at John the memory of a black- 
haired girl in an old-fashioned silk dress pricked 
and goaded her to brevity. 


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A GINGHAM ROSE 


“He is about to be married to your old friend 
and model, Miss Anne Preston !” 

“Anne !” he gasped, then steadied himself 
against the table. He caught the look of anx- 
iety in Catherine’s eye and recovered himself 
quickly, then gently took her hat out of her 
hands and stood silent, sticking the long gold 
pins carefully back into the gorgeous bit of ecru 
and geranium millinery. 

“Surely, Auntie, that is not possible,” and the 
girl gazed from her aunt to John. She pushed 
back her fair hair and straightened her skirts 
nervously. Somehow she never seemed to count 
if a third person were by, even “just Auntie.” 
She was made to feel that she wasted time when 
she spoke, and she knew she was forgotten when 
she kept silence. Catherine was proud and felt 
herself wronged. 

The woman regarded the girl with remote 
scorn. 

“If you can possibly give me your attention 
from John for a few moments I will seize the 
opportunity and tell you what I know.” 

John’s brows drew together and he shot one 


167 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


frank glance of disgust at the quarrelsome 
woman. He detested a strident voice. It came 
to him with new force, that if he and Catherine 
were to marry, the quicker the better, that she 
might be taken away from the influence of her 
not too gentle aunt. 

“This afternoon, just after lunch, at an hour 
when I was nearly certain to be in, the card of 
that impossible man, Marr, was sent up. I 
thought, of course, that Victor was worse and 
permitted him to come up. He came to invite 
us all to the — ceremony !” 

“When is it to be?” asked John. 

Agatha Tyler paid not the slightest heed to 
him. 

“The thing is so extraordinary,” she con- 
tinued, “I don’t know how to tell you about it, 
though one should be surprised at nothing from 
such a girl.” A stick of the little fan snapped 
and impatiently she threw it across the table. 

“What you imply is perfectly impossible,” 
said John, and there was about him the kind of 
dominance-masculine that the weakest man has 
over the strongest woman, and John was not 


168 


A GINGHAM ROSE 

weak. “Will you kindly remember that Anne 
and Victor are both my friends ?” 

“And will you, young man, kindly remember 
that Victor is my nephew and that I still have 
certain family rights which you do not yet 
share ?” 

“I am sure, Auntie, that John — ” Catherine 
began timidly. 

“Hold your tongue, girl,” said the infuriated 
woman. “Leave the room that I may settle this 
matter with your ‘John’ once and for all.” 

Catherine looked aghast, but John was at her 
side in a moment. 

“Go, dear,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t 
mind her. I will tell you all about it afterward.” 
When he had shut the door on Catherine he came 
back to Mrs. Tyler, and there was about him an 
irresistible boyishness, a something flatteringly 
intimate. He had made up his mind to wheedle 
the truth out of her, if need be, for the truth he 
must have, and the end justified the wheedling. 
“Now,” he said, “we may talk plainly and with 
due propriety.” He lowered his head to hide his 
eyes, and, stooping in a fascinating way, he 


169 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


picked up the discarded little fan. “Broken? 
Too bad,” he said lightly. “Now, do tell me all 
about it.” He sat on the edge of the table beside 
her and his manner was deferential and attentive. 

“Well, isn't it too amazing?” and Mrs. Tyler 
warmed at once to his confidential air. 

“I was never more astonished in my life,” ad- 
mitted John, adroitly converting truth to tact. 

Agatha hitched her chair nearer and glanced 
at the door. “You shut the door?” 

John nodded. 

“Well, then, they are really not to be married 
at all !” 

John looked at her, frankly mystified. 

“That is to say, according to the standard of 
any well brought-up person,” she added. “Vic- 
tor is too ill, of course, poor dear, to see any- 
thing in a normal light, and they have per- 
suaded him to have a ‘civil marriage,’ whatever 
that means, in the sanatorium, on Wednesday 
morning. They start for Arizona with a nurse, 
quite appropriately, in the afternoon. Did you 
ever hear of such a thing in all your life?” 

John was silent, thinking, thinking. “But,” 
he began cautiously, examining the broken fan 
170 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


to hide the anxiety in his eyes, “isn’t the disease 
very contagious?” 

Agatha Tyler blushed to the roots of her gray 
hair. 

“I can scarcely bring myself to talk this over 
with you. Marr says it is very contagious. 
They are to be married by contract, on what they 
call a basis of friendship ! It is perfectly cer- 
tain to end in some sort of scandal ! This comes 
of that awful Art School you all went to. I 
knew the place could do no good.” John’s eyes 
went lower. He was comprehending what hys- 
terics might mean. In order to help him over 
what she mistook for flustered modesty the 
woman hurried on volubly. “I believe Victor 
talks sick, sentimental nonsense about hoping to 
win her love when he gets well. She has the face 
not even to pretend she is in love, with him! 
Heaven only knows where this thing is to end.” 

John got down off the table and laid aside the 
little fan with the peculiar care that goes with 
skilled hands and an absent mind. The moment 
he got the information he wanted he cast aside 
all thought of the irascible old woman, who eyed 
him back with a growing alarm. Then, just as 
171 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Marr had done, he took his stick and stood trac- 
ing the pattern in the carpet. 

“I must, of course, see Anne at once,” he said. 
“She is altogether alone, and I am not at all sure 
she realizes the sacrifice she is making. She was 
always impulsive and generous to a fault. Will 
you say to Catherine that I shall be back at nine 
o’clock, and we will talk all this over together?” 
He was gone before she could collect herself for 
an answer. 

“Catherine, Catherine!” she cried. “Come 
here at once!” The girl hurried in. “What do 
you think has happened now ?” she said. 

“Where is John?” asked the bewildered girl. 
“Auntie, have you sent John away ? If you have, 
I’ll never forgive you to the longest day I live !” 
She stood to her last inch and was almost beau- 
tiful in her fair pride. 

“Humph !” and the woman looked at the girl 
with admiration. “I am glad to know you have 
some spirit, after all. John has gone to that 
little black-headed minx, and I doubt very much 
if you ever see him again !” She swept into her 
bedroom, the gay, broken, little, spangled toy 
glittering in her hand. 

172 


CHAPTER XV 

Science writes of the world as if with the 
cold finger of a starfish ; it is all true ; but what 
is it when compared to the reality of which it 
discourses ? 

— Robert Louis Stevenson. 

“Is Miss Preston here?” asked John Warren 
of the maid who responded to his ring at the 
sanatorium door. 

“I will ask Doctor Marr, sir. She usually 
leaves at six o’clock.” 

John glanced at his watch and went into the 
waiting-room. As the maid was leaving the 
room he called to her, “Will you take my card to 
Doctor Marr instead of Miss Preston ?” 

“Certainly, sir,” responded the unimpressible 
maid, moving colorlessly down the hall. She 
tapped on the office door and entered. 

Marr was sitting with his back to the light 
and the usual accompaniment of papers about 
him. He bent his head and read the card with 
173 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


his mouth down at the corners. Instantly the 
quiet of the office was turned topsy-turvy. 

“Confound the pack o’ ’em,” he groaned. 
“I’ve had all I can stand for one day. I won’t 
see him!” He buried himself in his paper. 

“He seemed right nervous, sir,” remarked the 
unimpressible maid, dispassionately. “He asked 
for Miss Preston first, sir; then before I had 
fixed the shades proper, that quick, sir, he 
changed his mind and asked for you instead!” 
The art of suggestion blossoms in the perfect 
maid: seeing all, remembering nothing; telling 
all, saying nothing. “What shall I say, sir?” 
she asked as freshly as if she had but entered 
the room. 

“Say nothing!” groaned the man. “I’ll say 
it myself. Go upstairs and ask Miss Preston 
not to leave the house till I come up. And say 
nothing of who is down here.” 

“Certainly, sir,” and noiselessly she climbed 
up the stairway, knocked, and entered. “The 
doctor says that Miss Preston will not leave the 
house till he comes up. He will be up as soon 
as he has finished with the young man in the 
reception-room.” 


174 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Anne, I’ll bet anything John is down there. 
Poor old Marr, he’s getting an overdose of us. 
Who was the young man?” Victor asked the 
maid. 

“I didn’t read the card, sir,” she said apathet- 
ically. 

“You didn’t, hey?” laughed Victor. “Now 
that’s a pity. You should always read the card. 
What are you here for? You might as well go 
on if you have nothing to tell.” He settled 
back among his pillows. 

“He seemed excited, sir.” And the maid 
noiselessly departed. 

“Why, Vic, you crosspatch!” laughed Anne. 
Just the same, her heart was thumping and she 
sat down to wait as patiently as possible for the 
doctor. 

Meantime Marr moved down the hall with his 
chin set and senses keyed to oppose John War- 
ren. The young man was about to marry 
Agatha Tyler’s niece; that, it seemed, pointed 
him to be either a great fool or a great knave. 

The two men stood observing each other for 
an exceptionally frank moment. It was their 
first meeting face to face. Each displayed a 
175 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


keen but finely-clothed attentiveness. “Stronger 
than I expected,” mused the older man. “Thor- 
oughbred to the bone,” sighed the younger man. 
Anne had strong allies. Then occurred a busi- 
nesslike hand-clasp; the doctor offered John a 
chair, faced him in another. 

“Doctor Marr,” John began, “I know that 
your time is more than full, so I shall be brief. 
Will you tell me as much as you may about this 
affair between Miss Preston and Mr. Stetson? 
I have been treated to Mrs. Tyler’s version, but 
it was scarcely — unprejudiced.” The men ex- 
changed as broad a smile as good breeding per- 
mits its lords of creation at the expense of one 
of its ladies: a smile delicately amused, exquis- 
itely satirical, and comfortably dead at birth. 
John had easily guessed from Mrs. Tyler’s fury 
the enmity between her and the doctor, and 
Marr, whose pastime was analysis, watched John 
play the card with an inward smile. 

“She is a stem woman,” the old man remarked 
with his head back and the tips of his long fin- 
gers together. 

“She has — opinions,” admitted John, and in- 
stantly, by a shade that slipped over Marr’s face, 
176 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


he was made to feel that three words more than 
enough had been said at the lady’s expense. 
John mentally raged at himself, but acknowl- 
edged his superior. The finely-seasoned old gen- 
tleman stood for the quality John’s creed of 
conduct held highest, a quality that he himself 
just missed. Alexander Marr was no sham; he 
never thought about the “right thing to do,” he 
did it. 

“It is true, then,” John hastened over the 
gulf, “that they are to be married on Wednes- 
day?” 

“True,” Marr inclined his head, “by the law 
of contract.” 

Honest concern dragged John for one honest 
moment out of the mud of self-consciousness, and 
he retorted : “You and I know well enough that 
that is as binding as any other marriage. All 
the surpliced choirs and benedictions on earth 
can make it no more binding, no more a fact.” 

Marr sat up. “That’s right, of course. But, 
with the added understanding between the two 
and the honor of Victor’s word, it is more pos- 
sible, more appropriate, more frank.” 


177 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Is it all quite — fair to Anne?” John asked 
with honest anxiety. 

“I’m damned if I know,” and Marr brought 
his hands down on the arms of his chair with 
nervous tenacity. 

“Does Anne realize all that she is possibly 
giving up?” John pursued. 

“Giving up?” Marr raised his eyebrows. 
Then settling easily back in his chair he polished 
his glasses a moment and peered at John through 
them. “I have for a great many years been 
rather vitally mixed up with other people’s affairs, 
but I have never given myself the luxury of dis- 
cussing them from an ethical point of view. Of 
course, you are in love with the little girl, too ; who 
is not?” he laughed. “But may I not send her 
down to you? She will tell you just what she 
cares to have you know, I am sure.” 

John was crimson. “I am to be married to 
Miss Gage in October,” he said, feeling absurd 
enough. 

“So I have heard,” commented the doctor, 
with his long fingers patiently together again. 
“Well, the distribution of genius seems about 
right : one to a family. Anne Preston, the little 
178 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


baggage, has upset all of my hard-earned theo- 
ries about women. She possesses a quality — if 
I didn’t know better, I’d call it scientific intui- 
tion — and,” he laughed, “who ever heard of such 
a thing as that? She convinces me of the estab- 
lished impossible. She has the delightful eager- 
ness that blunders and gets itself loved. The 
impossible feminine is always so much more con- 
vincing than the impossible masculine,” he smiled, 
and his glance held another paradox that left 
John fairly stripped. “She is very talented,” 
he continued easily. “It is amazing. I read a 
story of hers the other day, a concise little bit 
that hinged on a scientific question. I asked 
where she got her information and she had the 
audacity to say, ‘Out of the dictionary.’ She is 
very refreshing.” 

“I am glad,” said John, carefully, “that this 
will at least put her in a position where she will 
be free from pot-boiling. If she is not inter- 
rupted in her work — ” John flushed to hear him- 
self repeating the text of Anne’s old sermons to 
himself. 

Marr scowled and ran his hands impatiently 
over his hair. “It irritates me intensely that she 

179 . 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


has ever had that sort of thing to do. I assure 
you she shall not suffer again. If it were not for 
Victor’s prior claim I’d do my best to adopt her. 
She is so proud I don’t at all know that she 
would let me.” 

“You are an enthusiast,” murmured John, ab- 
sently. 

“Humph !” smiled Marr. “Since you and Mrs. 
Tyler both say so, I must be. But I hope I am 
discriminating. The fact is, young man, we are 
all, by nature, barnacles, and without something 
to fasten our faith to we miss our best possible 
destinies.” 

“May I see Miss Preston a few moments?” 
John asked. Armchair philosophy was unen- 
durable just now. 

“If she wishes.” Marr rose at once. John got 
to his feet. “I shall tell her you are here. And 
I shall not expect an answer to my invitation till 
after you talk with her. I have no desire to 
know her affairs except when I may help her. 
She has been silent thus far, but I believe she 
will be perfectly frank with you.” 

“Naturally,” said John, solicitously, “I real- 
ize that it is awkward for her.” 

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A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Awkward?” Marr paused, frankly mystified. 
“No woman ever had less reason to feel awkward, 
Mr. Warren. Good afternoon.” 

John was left with his thoughts for diversion 
and did not find himself well entertained. He 
was overwhelmed with the knowledge that Anne 
had risen out of his sphere of consideration ; he 
found her wrapped about and protected with the 
very thing he had chosen Catherine to gain; 
only, somehow, this was a better sort of thing; 
it held all that Catherine possessed and had, be- 
sides, an impregnable beauty of repose. He was 
baffled and drenched in a wave of clear vision 
that revealed himself beaten. He would have 
fled the house had he dared, but he had not the 
courage of frank cowardice. 

Marr found Anne sitting with her hat and 
gloves on and her jacket across her knees. Vic- 
tor looked pale and tired. The unimpressible 
maid had succeeded in breeding uneasiness. The 
man of science stepped to one side where he 
could watch the two of them. There was about 
him the refined cruelty of the physician who is 
convinced that he must, once for all, cut through 
feeling to justify fact. 

181 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“John Warren is downstairs and wishes to 
speak with Anne,” he said uncompromisingly. 

Victor and Anne both rose and their eyes 
questioned and answered silently. “I shall see 
him, of course,” she said faintly. 

“Of course she will,” sighed Victor, leaning 
back on his pillows. “We are all getting ner- 
vous, it seems to me; getting excited about a 
visit from John. It is only a wonder that he 
hasn’t been in oftener.” 

Anne’s mouth twitched satirically. “But, you 
see, Vic, he is as good as a member of your fam- 
ily now. No one ever knows his own family : it’s 
heaps safer not.” 

Marr came to the girl’s side. He rested his 
hand shyly on her shoulder. 

“Will you take off your hat and gloves, 
Anne? I should like it if you seemed to be in 
your own home with Warren.” Impulsively she 
rested her cheek on his hand. 

“Thank you,” she said and laid her hat aside. 

“There now,” and he ventured to smooth her 
hair lightly, delighting in his own daring. “I’ll 
stay up here with Victor.” 

“I shall not be long,” she said firmly. 

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A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Anne,” said Marr, “of course it is none of 
my business, but if I may suggest, I’d say it 
all at once and have it over with.” 

“You are quite right,” answered Anne, and 
she closed the door softly. 

Marr dropped into the chair by Victor’s couch. 
He sat with his eyes closed; he was tired; the 
day had meant much to him, both for himself 
and for the “youngsters.” 

“Something in the air, Stetson?” he asked 
with a candor that disarmed curiosity. 

“That is just the way I feel,” admitted Vic- 
tor. “What is the matter with the lot of us? 
Well, Anne will clear things up.” 

“Are you particularly fond of Warren?” 
asked Marr. 

“Why, yes,” said Victor, slowly. “I have a 
habit of being, you know. I’ve known him a 
long time. I confess I don’t understand him any 
more.” 

“He was indirect with me. I do not like that. 
It is a feminine quality: charming in a woman 
and damnable in a man.” 

“Anne’ll tell us all about it,” said Victor, con- 
fidently. “But,” he added firmly, “not unless she 
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A GINGHAM ROSE 


cares to. She shall keep her affairs to herself 
as much as she likes.” 

“Oh, of course, of course,” and Marr crossed 
and uncrossed his long legs and lazily repeated 
a bit of interesting news he had heard during 
the day. 


184 < 


CHAPTER XVI 


, released and aware: 

What was gone, what remained? All to traverse 
’Twixt hope and despair. 

— Browning. 

All men and women, according to their capa- 
city to suffer, stand, at one time or another, 
fascinated, on the brink of some eddying, suck- 
ing undertow; stand transfixed, with eyes wide 
but not for seeing. Here and there a venture- 
some one plunges deliberately, is whirled and 
tumbled, derided and half-drowned, dragged 
down and nearly broken, tossed for spite like a 
bauble high on the sands, left there to gasp and 
struggle ridiculously for the footing he him- 
self discarded. And these make useful men and 
women, sympathetic, too, diplomaed in the 
school of humility; but the price of their un- 
derstanding is to go through the rest of life 
bravely hiding scars and wearing always a look 
of having faced the light. 

Anne moved down the stairway like a dreamer ; 

185 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


spirit alert, body benumbed. In all the darkness 
shone one star: the gaunt honesty of the old 
man of science. She felt sheltered, felt thank- 
ful that this last talk with John was to occur 
under his roof. She saw her fate managed by 
accident; she knew she would be true to the 
friendly old man where she might have failed in 
being true to herself. And during all the sum- 
mer, especially these last hard weeks — mere 
“accident,” mere “fate,” she thought — she had 
been forging a suit of armor for her courage. 

She was learning — the story-builder’s trick 
— to read her own experiences as she would read 
a book by some masterful unknown. She was sin- 
cere ; she took the pages as they came ; she wor- 
ried very little about how the story was “coming 
out”; she was graciously saved all the labor of 
invention ; she was allowed to look on rather than 
forced to live. So she put aside the curtain that 
separated her from John with a gay little fraud 
of a smile; surely she would be rarely well 
amused with to-day’s page in her book of acci- 
dents, watching herself through a crisis! But 
there is something of doom in the dumb, thick, 
irrevocable fall of heavy velvet, and as the gray 
186 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


folds dropped behind her, shut her in with John, 
the tawdry little smile died its death in the 
poison of an honest sigh. 

“A turn and we stand in the heart of things.” 

Anne was face to face with John — she had 
thought it was for the last time; it seemed to 
them both to be the first. 

Stubbornly she gazed at him. He was, after 
all, only John Warren, whom she knew better 
than he knew himself. Her mouth curled with 
'self-scorn, and she asked herself why she was 
afraid. 

As for John, his senses were at war. He saw 
how her eyes seemed to gather all the twilight to 
themselves, how she seemed at one with the 
quiet place, then by some by-path of sense came 
a messenger that told him the girl had suffered, 
was tired out and heart-sick and, everything 
else forgotten, the best of him swept out to her. 
“Anne, dear, you are tired out. Come here !” 
He held his arms out to her. 

Anne stood staring with eyes wide, “but not 
for seeing.” All her lonely life she had been, crav- 
ing sympathy from some one who understood 

187 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


her, who could, by the best in himself, read the 
best in her. During these last baffling weeks she 
had had sympathy every way she turned. Marr, 
Victor, the nurses, the maids she passed on the 
stairway, every one was kind, but it was because 
they looked on her as a sort of child, who must 
be pitied. And now, here was John, standing 
with outstretched arms; John, bad as she be- 
lieved his motives to be, sham that she knew him. 
John, who, say what one might, was still John. 
John, who by the something in himself, could 
read the something in her. She tottered and 
John started toward her, then resentment, hon- 
esty, fate knows what, rose in her like a flood 
and she clung like mad to her chosen future. She 
raised her hands and proudly brushed the hair 
back from her forehead, and, because the whirl- 
ing force had flung her so far inland, her voice 
came harsh and unfamiliar. 

“Why, yes,” she said, ignoring his hands and 
moving over to the chair the doctor had left, 
“I am rather tired, but one gets over that. I 
seemed to be the only one of Victor’s friends that 
had the time to give for — getting tired.” Cyni- 
cism was helping her rapidly back to her laugh, 
188 


A GINGHAM ROSE 

and in that she saw safety, knew herself to be 
strong. 

“Anne,” John faltered, “I am sure you are 
generous enough to see how this has been very 
awkward for me.” 

“No,” she said firmly, “I do not see. I have 
got rather tired, John, of being generous at my 
own expense. It seldom pays, you know. I see 
that it is awkward, but I see, too, that the awk- 
wardness has been entirely of your own making.” 

“Perhaps I should not have come.” 

“It would have been less awkward had you 
come a long time ago.” She motioned him to 
take the chair. For a while the room was given 
over to silence. Self-conscious people prefer any 
sort of noise to silence, so it was John who spoke 
first. 

“All this news is true, then?” 

“Yes, all true,” she smiled uncompromisingly. 
There was something remote, almost puritanical 
about her head with its rim of black hair and the 
white, clear-eyed face against the tapestry of 
the high-backed chair. John looked and paid 
the price of the man who has dared treat beauty 
as a science. 

189 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Is it quite — right?” he questioned, and, be- 
cause he was struggling, he chose the wrong 
words. He seemed to have started all wrong, 
but his vanity, bruised and shaken as it was, 
whispered to him that things were not fair, that 
something unjust was keeping him from doing 
his best. 

“Right!” and the echo of his word bore all 
the scorn she felt. 

“Will you tell me about it?” he asked, trying 
for new ground. 

“I am sure, John, that you have been told. Is 
it,” and she bent forward and smiled into his 
eyes curiously, “that you are a little cruel? that 
you want to watch me while I recite the harrow- 
ing details of my martyrdom ?” 

“But, you know it is not that,” he urged. 

“I assure you, John, that I know nothing in 
the world. I was very wise not long ago, even 
as I came downstairs to you just now; very 
wise!” She laughed. “Now, John, listen, for 
I am going to tell you all about it. I have never 
felt for any one the kind of affection I feel for 
Victor; I have never in my life known any one 
who deserved affection as he does. Why, think 
190 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


of it ! He is never so happy as when he can find 
some little thing to give up for me, for my hap- 
piness and my comfort. Can you imagine it? 
It is wonderful and beautiful. You see, I 
thought, until Victor came back, that there was 
no such thing as unselfishness in all the wide 
world. You know, John, how alone I am; it is 
nearly absurd being so alone in such a ‘big 
world,’ so full of people, is it not? But, John, 
have you noticed how even the absurdly small 
things are not allowed to stay alone for ever? 

“So, the mite has been discovered, taken in, 
clothed and fed, and loved — God knows why — 
but even loved! I’d have gone to Arizona as 
Victor’s nurse had it been possible, but all these 
people in this big world will have no such thing, 
and the mite had been smaller and more alone 
than ever before in the end; and because the 
friends of the mite are so generous, the sacrifice 
is not permitted. So we are to be married by 
the law of contract, and contracts, as you know, 
dabble very little in sentimentality. But as for 
sentiment, — the contract is fairly steeped in it! 
A paradox, is it not, John? But you know noth- 
ing is really true that refuses to be made over 
191 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


into a paradox; and this is all very true.” As 
she talked the pain crept through her voice till 
John thought he must cry out. Again she 
laughed and watched him shrewdly. “Are you 
and Catherine and your Aunt Agatha coming?” 

“I can’t say until I have seen them,” he said. 
He was dazed. 

“Stupid John,” she said lightly; “why don’t 
you take your revenge? Don’t you see that I 
am marrying Aunt Agatha, too?” 

Anger flushed John’s face till in his discomfi- . 
ture his smooth hair and conventional, self-pos- 
sessed collar and tie produced an effect of pre- 
posterous opposition between the man and the 
man’s garb. “You have a talent, Anne, for 
making me seem clumsy. Besides,” his voice 
was thick, “I had scarcely thought it a time for 
joking !” 

“John, tell me, do you really think that any- 
thing human ever rose to a point above being a 
joke?” Her eyes grew hard as she read his 
anger. “Things have changed between you and 
me now. You used to mold me nearly as you 
liked. But that was all before you lost your 


192 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


power through being untrue to Catherine and 
to me.” 

John got to his feet. The blood was beating 
in his ears. He could almost have struck her. 
“You are absolutely unjust!” 

“I think not.” The girl rose, too. “John 
Warren, the something between you and me is 
not quite dead, maybe never would die of itself ; 
but it is not good, and sometimes when things 
are not good and refuse to die they must be 
killed. Do, John,” she pleaded, “look me in 
the face just once, be frank, and help me ! It is 
the only thing we can do, and it may mean so 
much to us all the rest of our lives !” 

“7 help you!" and there was an ugly sneer in 
John’s laugh and his face grew coarse. “Yes, 
Anne Preston, there is a something between us, 
you are right ! And it is not to be killed ! It will 
die when we do and not before. I tell you there 
is a something about you that answers true to 
a something about me, that is all mine, and, no 
matter whom you marry, no matter whom I 
marry, no matter where we go, you will come 
back some day when I call you! You dare not 
deny it with all your pride ; you are mine !” 

193 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


The girl recoiled in terror and, absurd again, 
her head hit the edge of a picture-frame and 
the trifling smart courageously saved the crisis. 
Fate playing with another accident ! She turned 
and straightened the frame carefully, steadying 
her shaking hands. She glanced up to see, to 
get food for her frightened mind. It was a por- 
trait of Carlyle. She laughed. 

“He’d have made an epigram out of our 
mimic heroics and his dyspepsia, would he not, 
John? We are acting like babies!” she turned 
on him. “I do hope we both have sense enough 
to meet a situation we have made for ourselves. 
We must, for Catherine and for Victor, if self- 
respect is not enough. But, John, if you are 
able to arrange it with tact, I believe it will be 
better if you do not bring our aunt,” she sighed, 
“to the — performance! Ruth will be back, I 
hope ; if not, Doctor Marr and Miss Evans, the 
nurse, will do as witnesses.” 

John laughed. “I understand you are being 
appropriately sent away in the care of a nurse !” 

Anne stood straight and white. “Will you 
go now, at once ?” 


194 


CHAPTER XVII 


Ghosts ! Oh, breathing beauty. 

— Browning. 

So Fate paces by, serene and terribly light of 
touch, fitting her foot noiselessly into the nick 
of time; damning with a word of praise, trans- 
forming and lifting with a curse, making noth- 
ingness blossom ; on she goes, unvarying of pace, 
and with an intricate irony in her smile. 

The clang of the door that shut John out of 
the house and away from Anne sent her stagger- 
ing against the wall again, and even old Carlyle 
with his tragical humor could not save. She was, 
by the grace of fate, face to face with herself, 
confronted with a pretty, human bit of fabric 
that seemed in the flash of light to be woven of 
nothing but lies and self-deception and conceit. 

She loathed and wondered at her frailty. 
Could all this last hour be true? Was she herself 
real flesh and blood? Was everything after all 
a hopeless masquerade? She dropped her hands 
195 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


and gazed curiously about the gray-walled room 
in the deepening twilight. A cloud like a cur- 
tain of gauze seemed to drop over the face of 
things. The room with its array of portraits 
seemed a stage, and she was a ghost with the 
rest. 

Her eyes sought the eyes of the old engrav- 
ings with a fantastic intimacy. Kant was there, 
Spinoza, Darwin, Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante, 
Voltaire and the rest, her host’s familiars. They 
smiled back on her so shrewdly, it was as if she 
and they had a j oke in common if some one could 
just speak it! Then in the vibrating veil of 
gauze they seemed to descend from their frames, 
the wan light shining through the lines of the 
engraver like evening through a lattice. They 
ranged in quaint row, polishing their glasses, 
and peering at her through the gauze, amused, 
concerned, amused. And suddenly in their midst 
appeared John ! John, marvelously new and 
done over into a drawing by himself, stumbling 
along in the tattered rags of his own technic! 
And in his hands, for the inevitable note of 
color, he carried a great flushed rose ! 


196 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


The ghostly troop gathered about him with 
mild curiosity. They stepped gingerly lest they 
tread on the trailing lines that clogged his 
steps like ball and chain. “Oddly rendered,” 
they murmured with glances at one another. 
“ ’Tis a way of the times, no doubt.” 

John, with a gravity so heavy it seemed it 
must needs break, held out his rose for a verdict. 

They sniffed it, they touched the thorns on 
the long, slender stem with the delicacy that 
comes of knowledge, and they smiled. Then, 
horror of horrors ! one there was who plucked a 
petal and held it sternly between his thumb and 
finger and put it beneath a little glass he wore 
for a fob. 

Said another, “It hath a pleasant smell.” 

“True,” nodded yet another with a twinkle in 
his eye. “ ’Tis a pleasant thing to look upon. 
’Tis bravely garbed.” 

“Humph !” laughed the one with the glass and 
the petal. “ ’Tis as I supposed ; ’tis no real 
rose: it bleeds! I have proved that it bleeds!” 
He held a ghostly thumb up for inspection and 
on it was a tiny red spot. 


197 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


They gathered about with a flutter of mild, 
amused curiosity. “Odd conceit,” they babbled. 
“A rose that bleeds !” 

“Tee-hee,” chuckled one with a long, thin 
nose. “The conceit, if odd, likes me well ! ’Twill 
play a devilish pretty part as it dances across to 
the wings, eh, William?” and he stuck a long, 
tickling ghost-finger into the ribs of another. 

“Aye, that it will,” sighed he of the ribs, winc- 
ing and edging away from the finger. 

“Old fools!” thundered John, flinging the 
rose under his feet, where it got tangled with the 
trailing lines. “I tell you, you are all wrong. 
Fossils ! It’s a gingham rose !” And from his 
whole body dripped lines of “technic” instead 
of blood, though he suffered and suffered. 

“Ah,” smiled the one with the petal between 
his thumb and finger. “You think so? I shall 
preserve this petal and some day you’ll come 
round without your harness and see for your- 
self!” 

“Fools, eh?” laughed he of the long, thin 
nose, lightly. “It is praise to be called fools by 
a fool. Be gone !” Each ghostly finger pointed 
toward the door. “Silly sketch of a man,” they 
198 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


laughed and laughed, “go out into the world 
and learn what it means to be a good old en- 
graving !” 

Somewhere a door clanged again and Anne 
found herself with her eyes fixed on a rose in 
the patterned carpet. With a start and a shud- 
der, she groped her way along the darkened hall 
to the stairway and on up to Victor’s room. 
She had no idea how long she had been down 
there. She ran into the room quickly and shut 
the door behind her. The light dazed her and 
she stood staring like one just wakened from 
sleep. 

Victor and Marr both rose and waited for her 
to speak. She felt dumb, could think of noth- 
ing to say. But the look of Victor, standing 
with his hands grasping the edge of the table, 
and with the strong light etching his illness so 
clearly, stung her to self-recovery. She realized 
that she had come back to the way she had 
chosen, this time for good, and she must speak 
as the need of the time dictated. 

It was easier, perhaps, than to tell the truth ! 
She looked up into Marr’s eyes and laughed. 
“Were you ever afraid of ghosts?” she asked. 
199 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


The old man, for some reason, chose to take 
her seriously. “Perhaps,” he admitted. “Sit 
down, Stetson; she is all right,” he said to Vic- 
tor. He stood smoothing his watch in his long 
hand. “Do you know, young man, we have 
about worn the little girl out among us. She is 
all nerves. Now, we must try to make amends. 
She is to be our guest to-night, and we’ll see 
what we can do.” 

Anne shook her head. “They’ll be worried 
about me.” 

“I’ll send a telegram,” said Marr, and he 
hung her hat and coat up in Victor’s closet and 
put the key in his pocket. “It was my fault, I 
suppose, that the ghosts and spooks were abroad. 
I, idiot for tact that I am, told the maid not to 
disturb you with lights. We’ll go out there and 
turn them all on full, now,” he smiled, “but, 
Anne, I’ve an idea everybody has to deal with 
his own ghosts in the end.” 

“I know it,” she answered, turning the idea 
over and over. “It wouldn’t be so difficult, would 
it, if they would just wear their labels outside?” 
The old man seemed nearly as misty and spirity 


200 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


as the ghosts she had left downstairs and she 
wondered if she were losing her wits. 

“No, it wouldn’t,” he admitted. Then for a 
space these two quaintly-turned natures stood 
with their troops of ghosts acknowledged be- 
tween them. 

And Victor? He was forgotten, and left out; 
and he knew it. He knew it just as Catherine 
knew that she was left out when there was some 
one else by to talk to John. But Victor hoped, 
for he understood, though he had no voice; and 
poor Catherine had still to gain understanding. 

“But,” Marr laughed a little consciously, 
“that is no reason why we won’t be getting hun- 
gry. I must descend to the realm of the cook. 
We’ll have our dinner up here. Now, Anne, 
you young porcupine, you curl up in that chair 
and don’t you budge till I get back. You are 
not to frighten my patient out of his senses with 
any more ghost-stories; and no more dreams 
either, mind you. I’ll be a half-hour, perhaps,” 
and he hurried out with the half-gay, half-sad 
activity of a generous heart too long held back. 

“Vic,” she said contritely, as she settled into 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


the depths of the chair, “you look as white as if 
you’d been seeing ghosts, too. I’m so sorry* It’s 
all very well to scare myself with my play-acting, 
but I’ve no business scaring you and Doctor 
Marr, too.” 

Impulsively Victor turned his eyes full on 
hers. “Anne,” he asked low, “do you still care 
for John?” 

“Victor!” she gasped. “How can you think 
such a thing!” The lie crushed her pride, but 
she saw it as the only way. “John and I quar- 
reled to-day,” she said slowly. “I had not meant 
to tell you about it, but, perhaps, if you know, 
it will be best. I don’t believe anything will 
ever make it right. I lost my respect for him, 
nearly for myself. Please let’s forget him.” At 
that moment Fate sent one of her intricate smiles 
and told the girl that women by no means always 
respect the thing they love. Truly her ghosts 
were walking to-night. She sighed to see her- 
self chained to them for all the rest of her days, 
doing their grim bidding. One thing she re- 
solved upon finally. Victor should never guess 
she cared for John, not if she lied her soul away 
to keep him from it. 

202 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Poor Catherine!” said Victor, absently. “I 
wish something would interfere with their mar- 
riage.” 

“I have said as much to John,” sighed Anne. 

Victor turned his eyes upon her with a curious 
gaze. “Don’t talk any more, girlie. You are 
tired out and need to rest. Go to sleep a while. 
Brave little Nancy !” he smiled and shut his eyes. 

Anne impulsively put out her hand and rested 
it on his. The big palm turned and closed about 
hers completely. The impulse by, she wondered 
vaguely if there is more of irritation in the 
sense of physical mastery or more of comfort in 
the idea of security and protection. She half 
closed her eyes and watched him furtively. His 
face was very white, but his hand was reassur- 
ingly warm. 

The whiteness was curious: it repelled her 
while it woke her pity anew; it was almost the 
white of the thick waxy lily, the white of renun- 
ciation. Victor had had a glimpse into his own 
limitations, but she did not know that. She tried 
dreamily to remember the legend of how the 
lilies had paid for their wonderful pallor. The 
delicious sense of the onlooker was upon her 
203 


A GINGHAM HOSE 


again; she was afloat in the world of her own 
fancies; her head pressed closer and closer to 
the arm of the chair, and she slept. 

When Marr came in, Victor raised a hand in 
warning. The old man moved up softly. He 
spoke in the physician’s voice that somehow 
never disturbs. 

“What a baby she is! a wise baby, Stetson. 
Too wise for her own happiness. Have you ever 
noticed, young man, how much more worn an 
old face is in sleep and how much more youthful 
a young face? It takes death in the absolute 
to wipe out the difference. I have my paper,” 
he nodded. “The maid will be in to set the table 
in a moment. It won’t waken her,” he smiled. 
He drew his chair into the circle of light. The 
place was silent. And always Victor watched 
Anne, and there was in his eyes both a great 
hunger and the strength to starve like a man if 
he must. 


204 


CHAPTER XVIII 


Most progress is most failure. Thou sayest well. 

— Browning. 

The clang of the door that shut Anne in with 
her ghosts sent John reeling down the sanato- 
rium steps dazed and humiliated. He could not 
force order among his clamoring senses. Anne — 
Anne Preston — had ordered him from the house, 
and he had obeyed her like a whipped dog. He 
was blind and dumb with self-contempt. From 
the moment he had entered Marr’s house things 
had conspired against him. In certain rooms of 
this world, before certain people of this world, 
a man inevitably is at his worst. 

The old scholar, with his slim, high-bred 
make, and the actuality, the unconscious repose 
of his home had delivered John over to a look at 
himself, had overwhelmed him with a sudden 
nausea for his studio with its artificially dim 
light, its stained wood walls and affected high 
205 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


shelf burdened with useless brass and pewter. 
He saw with horror his own veneer, the same 
tepid stain that masked the cheap pine boards. 
Silly, unsubstantial, meaningless, and sick, for 
once he recognized himself. 

And what disaster had wrought the change in 
Anne? The frail-willed girl he had been used 
to bend as he liked. Was she blaming him for 
that night in the park ? He had meant to smooth 
it over, to make it easy for her, by ignoring it. 
He had put up with her frankness with much 
patience. 

Suddenly other scales fell from his eyes, and 
he saw that the old frankness had been robbed 
of its sting and had been served to him steeped 
in the honey that subtly praises and pronounces 
worthy censure, given because she cared so 
much. The glimpse wrenched him from the 
thick habit of believing that she did and would 
always depend on him, expect strength of him 
— in a way — all her life long, come what might. 
In his dreams he had always seen himself with a 
certain pathos outliving all his acquaintances, 
profiting by their experiences. All at once he 


206 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


saw the millions that had never seen him. He 
passed his shaking hand across his forehead in 
self-pity and protested that he had always meant 
to help her in some way, especially in placing 
her work, but after she had proved herself. 
John reveled in the hard, selfish doctrines of 
desolate justice. 

To-day he had stumbled, but he had been ex- 
asperated beyond endurance. Vanity, John’s 
best friend, a friend so cherished that he had 
kept her under glass, had broken loose, and 
though she flung him a word in her old soothing 
way now and then, she walked just before, hand 
in hand with his real self, and as he watched 
furtively he saw them hiding a laugh. With a 
swerve to the old way she whispered that except 
for Marr he would have been master. But van- 
ity was ill and could not speak for long at a 
time. She failed to convince him of anything 
but one fact — Anne had been in earnest. 

He walked down to his club, habit taking the 
place of inclination. Once there he awoke with 
a dread of meeting men he knew: perhaps they 
knew him. He went to the reading-room and 


207 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


hid behind a paper. Composure was written in 
illuminated letters at the top of John’s creed of 
conduct and he struggled to get it back. 

“Well, I never!” some one laughed back of 
the paper barricade. Three faces that had some 
way grown unfamiliar peered over the top of 
the paper. “Ruffled, old man ? Our little friend 
Warren reading the morning paper at seven in 
the evening and upside down at that !” 

John gulped and smiled and half got to his 
feet, but they moved away with a laugh. 

Said one: “Warren’s given up morning pa- 
pers because of the evening quality.” Said an- 
other: “They go better with candle-light, you 
know.” In the door they paused and laughed 
again. “Come along, Warren. Smooth your 
plumage and eat a steak!” But no one waited 
and no one really cared. 

He put down the paper and gazed stupidly 
about. So, here in his club, their club, too, were 
the same sham walls and cheap effects, tones that 
were timid shadows of real color. Even the pew- 
ter and brass caught the light in just the proper 
way, everything arranged and studied, and 
spread over with self-conscious gray to befool 
208 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


age and usage. And these men were worse than 
he: they did not respect it nor believe in it, but 
they put up with it because it was easier than 
to revolt. He got to his feet and left the place 
with his head up. He would go to a restaurant 
and dine, go to some place where the chairs were 
made to sit on — not to be looked at; where he 
paid for what he got when he got it. 

He walked down Broadway and resolutely 
turned in at the first restaurant that caught his 
eye. He was not hungry, but, because it seemed 
the quickest way to get rid of the waiter who was 
reading his life through the back of his head 
while he hesitated, he ordered dinner. Some one 
had said something about steak ; that would do ; 
it did not matter what. He smoothed his hair 
with his hands and as he raised his head a high 
light on a bit of polished brass caught and twin- 
kled at his eyes. Destruction began brewing 
within him. Every way he looked — Dutch stuff, 
stained wood, high shelf, pewter plates, and this 
time rendered truly absurd in a glare of electric 
lights. 

What is this malady, he asked himself, creep- 
ing about the city, this sham with a Dutch 
209 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


mien? A woman with a gray -haired man rus- 
tled by the table and her clothes and manner 
echoed Paris. He put his hands over his hot 
eyes and tried to think of something genuinely 
American. Anne’s eyes looked back at him fear- 
lessly. He knew now what she had meant when 
she had said that his was, she supposed, the 
“nice” kind of room he “believed in having.” 
John saw that his pedestal had grown so tall 
because he had used cheap material. The fall 
was long and hard. He wanted to be free of 
the whole tangle, to take a fresh start, to be in 
earnest and honest. He left the place and got 
out into the street. 

At the door a girl in a big hat was talking 
with a frank-faced man. “Come on,” said the 
man, “we’ll get dinner in here.” “Not much,” 
said the girl with a toss of her hat. “All the 
hay-seeds from Jersey is in there seein’ the 
sights. I don’t want a place to look at. I’ve 
seen ’em before. I want somethin’ to eat.” 

“Well,” sighed John, as he walked along, “she 
has more sense than I had. She knows what she 
wants. ‘Something to eat !’ ” He wandered 
up and down the street, half-blind, hurt and 
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adrift. He was bewildered by the gleam of the 
shop-windows, the sparkle-eyed fun of the pass- 
ing throng. He was an alien, had nothing in 
common with anything. 

The rain had cleared and the streets were 
clean and transparent, glassy. Above the cu- 
riously metallic city-life gleamed a still, clean 
sky spotted with cool evening stars. His eyes 
and senses were drawn out of focus in the steadi- 
ness of his gaze. He saw little, lonesome, totter- 
ing individuals rushing after expensive fun ; 
hurrying cabs, and persisting cars; all caught 
in a passion of activity and trivial thoroughness. 
Truth herself made the etching with her quick 
point on his brain. He felt the soul in every de- 
tached mystified specter; knew that, do as he 
would, he was but another pitifully hoping and 
smiling ghost, all-enveloped and whirling in a 
never-lifting, invisible fog; a great blind heart, 
caught by a buffeting current. 

Doggedly he went to his studio, a purpose 
growing and rising, a strength he neither would 
nor could discuss with himself. He went to the 
center of the room and gazed about the place. 
He had never really seen it before. He got 
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A GINGHAM ROSE 


his pipe off the shelf and lighted it, then 
stood back looking about and letting his fury 
go. All at once the hate ran over and, like a 
madman for strength, he snatched down the 
pewter and brass and flung it on the floor in a 
heap. The light from the streets caught with 
a faint redness on the metals and irritated him 
terribly, and with a rush he tore down a raw 
silk curtain and covered the heap. It looked like 
some dead thing lying there. He laughed as he 
looked, like an imbecile over a secret. He 
marched to the window and threw it wide for air. 
His hand touched something cool and the pun- 
gency of the geranium reached his senses. With 
a groan he trailed his fingers along the stout 
little stems. 

He had no idea how long he had stood there 
when he remembered Catherine. Poor little 
girl! — one of the blindest of the puppets in the 
globe. He went to his desk and mechanically 
lighted a candle. It twinkled at him as, with 
a new rush of anger, he flung it across the room. 
It hit a chair, spluttered, rolled out of the brass 
stick and fell to the floor. He lighted the gas, 
every jet in the place, turning them all on as 
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A GINGHAM ROSE 


far as they would go. Life was to begin all 
over again, without quarter. He must tell Cath- 
erine the truth. Cost what it might to them 
both now, if he let it go on it would be but a 
heavier debt to meet in the end. 

After he had written his letter, he went into 
his bedroom and took her picture off the shelf 
and wrapped it and addressed it to her. Then he 
went outside to post them before thinking 
should have time to make a compromising cow- 
ard of him again. The place fell into a stillness 
as if the city light were sitting up with the dead 
thing on the floor. Something was wrenched 
off the door and John came in and flung a big 
brass knocker on the pile. He turned out the 
gas and went into his room. He put Anne’s 
photograph in the center of the shelf and looked 
at it a long time. 

He knew now that he had never understood 
her. All at once his head sank down till his fore- 
head rested on his arms. “Nancy,” he whis- 
pered, “don’t laugh at me like that !” He raised 
his head stubbornly. “You have got to help me 
whether you will or not.” 


213 


CHAPTER XIX 


And I have written three books on the soul, 
Proving absurd all written hitherto, 

And putting us to ignorance again. 

— Browning. 

After dinner Marr took Anne and Victor to 
his library: it was the best he had to offer, and 
good enough. 

“Oh,” sighed Anne, standing in the center of 
the room by the desk, “it is my air-castle come 
true !” 

Marr and his workshop were at one. Books, 
old and new, of yesterday and to-day, light and 
heavy, on desk, shelves, chairs and floor, in 
delightful, clean disorder. The desk was of 
beautiful wood and fitted with strong, useful 
things, tools in earnest, no waste but amplitude. 
The girl moved slowly about the room, letting 
her sympathetic fingers linger over a volume or 
a bit of finely turned metal work, and last she 
approached Marr and rested her hand lightly 
on his sleeve with the same reverence. 

2U 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Victor was leaning back in a great leather 
chair, watching the two with real enjoyment. 
“You fit the place nearly as well as the doctor, 
Nancy. You look like the spirit of some old 
Botticelli ‘springtime’ come to life. Ten to one 
Marr has never heard of Botticelli, but he had 
all the science and something besides, didn’t he? 
— the something Anne looks like in the old room 
here.” 

“Young man,” said Marr, seriously, “you have 
hit the very thought I brought you in here to 
find. You and I have a charge in this young- 
ster,” and he patted Anne’s hand. “Now, sit 
down, child.” He put her into a chair and sat 
with his head on his ha^id by his desk, the strong 
lamplight making him a study that set Victor’s 
fingers tingling. “I must, I insist upon hav- 
ing the floor for once,” he finished, laughing. 

“For once?” Anne raised her brows satirically. 

The man looked her over curiously and ab- 
sently. 

Anne wriggled. “Don’t ! You make me feel 
like a specimen.” 

“Anne, it is just that spirit you have, that 
polite impudence; what is a man to call it?” he 
215 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


frowned at her. “It is so elusive and so valuable, 
I am afraid to speak of it for fear it go. But 
it’s the quality that lights up the science of 
things. It gets to a height now and then that 
science has not learned to formulate, and I hope 
it never will. Life is cut and dried enough now. 
Hold fast to every such nameless moment that 
comes to you. Perhaps it may never be given 
you to convey a single such moment; words are 
a lame vehicle after all, but such things, fleeting 
jack-o’-lantern fancies maybe, will suffuse your 
toil with a warm glow of personality. Without 
that glow, work might as well be left undone. 

“I do want you to see what I mean, to under- 
stand me. I never wanted anything more. There 
is so much climbing for that spirit of yours to 
do, so many mistakes to be made and lived down, 
so much toil, — for I take you seriously enough, 
child, — so much to be suffered before the spirit 
may come into a voice of its own. You were 
born wise, Anne, whatever that means; but un- 
less you come to the wise who have lived, 
along a path of clean, honest, real w r ork, they 
will never speak with you as a familiar. What 
aristocrats they are! Beautiful, more beautiful 
21 6 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


than anything else in the world! The place is 
worth the toil, God knows. The mind is a stupid 
machine enough unless there is a spirit for pro- 
peller. But extremes are the danger of the day. 

“There is so much publicity about life now, 
and it is a contagious disease if ever there was 
one. Every one must build his house taller than 
his neighbor, tall, no matter how silly; then he 
puts on a fantastic overcoat with a red collar and 
blue cuffs, and he wears it hot or cold, and there 
he sits and crows! Hideous! Dollars and a 
machine will build a tall house. But,” he 
laughed, “there is no danger of your doing that, 
for you have your humorous eye on yourself, or 
I am mistaken ! And, after all, theories won’t do 
much for us except to keep us awake nights. 
Let’s see,” he got thoughtfully to his feet and 
put on his glasses. “Do you know what Carlyle 
says about theories?” He went to a shelf and 
his hands moved over the volumes with rapid 
familiarity. 

“Your fingers have eyes, I am sure,” smiled 
Anne. 

He glanced over his shoulder. “No, they have 
habits. Habits are the eyes of the blind, you 
217 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


know, and there we are, just where we started!” 
He came back to the light and bent his head 
over the book, turning rapidly to what he 
wanted. “Here it is. ‘What theory is so earnest 
as this, that all theories, were they never so ear- 
nest, painfully elaborated, are, and by the condi- 
tion of them must be, incomplete, questionable, 
even false? The healthy heart that said, “How 
healthy am I!” was already fallen into the fa- 
talest disease.’ ” 

“I know,” said the girl, in a voice suppressed 
by crowding thoughts; “I haven’t read Carlyle 
much, but I have thought about that a lot. It 
means, doesn’t it, that anything that goes after 
a definite aim is as good as lassoed to start with ; 
is finite and that much less than an impulse?” 

The man of science stood with his thumb in 
the thick volume and his glasses in his hand, 
looking down on the girl with new-born enthusi- 
asm burning her cheeks to crimson. “I’m no 
less than an egotistical old fool, I suppose, fan- 
cying I can help you. I suppose you’d sit on a 
stool and talk about ‘lassoing ideas’ to Carlyle 
himself, if you had a chance!” He laid the 
volume aside and sat back in his chair again. 

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A GINGHAM ROSE 


“But, Anne, I have such faith in you, and I am 
about at the end of my faith in myself, you see. 
I think I shall go on permitting myself the lux- 
ury of egotism till you forbid me. Why, you 
fortunate baby, you have a gift of fifty years of 
opportunity before you ; think of it ! But you 
won’t think of that till you some day suspect 
yourself of being a failure, and that will come 
after the gift is about used up. But you must 
have some training. I know you will suffer for 
it unless you do. It will give you possession of 
yourself, it will put the tools into your hands, 
and then the impulses will begin to crystallize. 
Anne, will you do as I wish for a while?” 

“I should rather do something for you than 
any one else,” she said fervidly; “but unless I 
can feel as you do about it, it won’t be any use 
trying. I’m just a human mule, you know.” 

“Well,” he laughed, “that is better than being 
a human hobby-horse. But, I want you to do 
some good reading, to write just because you 
have something to say and not to cover so many 
yards of paper with so many hundred words. 
Let the publishers be for a while, for as long as 
they’ll let you be. With a few good old excep- 
219 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


tions they have degenerated into factories, and 
books are made, not written. The editor has 
turned into a caterer and popularity is his idol. 
And if he gets his hands on you he’ll punch you 
into his newest mold, then presto ! just when you 
are getting comfortable, he has a new mold and 
you, if you have escaped being eaten, will find 
yourself helping to make a monument out of a 
heap of dough. There is a kind of thing in 
literature to-day that to me is baffling and mis- 
leading. That man there,” pointing to a mod- 
ern little book lying on the table, “is one of its 
symbols.” 

“Symbol,” he repeated thoughtfully, sending 
a gentle blue cloud of smoke from a delicious 
cigar about his head to help the thinking ; “that 
is a pretty word and the right one, I fancy. 
What he writes is sweet, and sometimes very 
beautiful, but it is the deadly, paralyzing sweet- 
ness and beauty of the swamp-lily. I admit there 
are swamp-lilies: the thing is true; that’s the 
worst of it; I’ve caught my breath at the sight 
of them and the scent of them, more than once. 
But the trouble is they turn everything into a 
swamp-lily. Truth is not in a rut; it takes ac- 
220 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


count of an old-fashioned garden as well as the 
big pungent flowers of the swamp. Truth is a 
quality ; it is as big as it is little ; it is as affected 
as it is honest. Everything is true. To-day, 
yesterday, and to-morrow; one as true as the 
other. You are modern to your finger-tips, 
Anne, but you have the brow of a Puritan, no 
matter if there is a little devil in the tail of your 
eye. So much the better. You’ll see just so 
much more truth. You must live enthusiastic- 
ally, but in health ; you must run down a by- 
path and take a look at the land now and then ; 
you must be non-partizan, listen to all sides with 
equal heart and brain turned on full, and you 
will live to hear an old fool say, ‘I told you so !’ ” 

The girl’s eyes shone and she had too full a 
heart just then to stoop to words, so she rested 
her cheek a moment against the hand on his 
knee. 

“Ah,” he smiled, his eyes frankly misty, “that 
is the kind of impulse that tells. The best prom- 
ise of all. There are no words so eloquent as 
doing. And, Anne, do you realize the feminine 
beauty of the quality? Your sense of things is 
so inborn, your touch so much your own, you 
Ml 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


can’t hurt it by forgetting it and going to work 
at the language of some of the good old men 
whose work is done. It was done for you and 
your kind, child. Every one may buy a book, 
but very few can read it. Let the impulses be ; 
they are like physical beauty, — they will take 
best care of themselves. Work honestly and with 
all your heart, and the style will come to the 
well-grounded surface like destiny atop of toil.” 

“Don’t you think — ” and there was a timidity 
in the girl’s voice — “that impulse is destiny?” 

Marr fairly beamed. “Blessed baby, been 
reading Maeterlinck, eh? Confound him!” he 
laughed good-naturedly. “Of course it is, — 
that is just what it is. By impulse a man is 
given a glimpse, like temptation, into what he 
might do if he would, but so few have the pa- 
tience to do their work. Glimpses and impulses 
make great leaps; the creature may not go so 
fast. But the big men are all great craftsmen 
and they have given their best years and 
strength to learning their trades. And in the 
end, because they are big of heart, they forget 
the toil, take it for granted, as a thing naturally 
to be expected, and then they come into a very 
222 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


unconsciousness of having slaved and sacrificed 
at all. That is the reward above wages, child. 
Do you understand?” he bent toward her eager- 
ly. His face grew hard and stern. “I will not 
have you be a ‘smart’ writer. It’s stuff and silli- 
ness in the end. It simply means a dilettante 
skill, and keeping open-eyed pace with the fash- 
ion of the day, not forgetting, above all things, 
to be up in time to see the color of the sunrise 
and to cast an early-worm eye on the shop-win- 
dows. Bah, it is sickening. Why, think of the 
real men ! Who cares in his heart of hearts what 
trend their personal vanity took? We like, over a 
cup of tea with a pretty woman, to remark upon 
Whitman’s long hair, Byron’s limp, and Swin- 
burne’s chin, but read your Whitman, your 
Byron, your Swinburne, and you don’t care a 
fig. Why, the commonest farmer, if by chance 
he unearthed something uncommon with his 
plow, unearthed a fad that matched the sunrise, 
let us say, could no doubt put up an ‘eccentric- 
ity’ that would send the long hair, the limp, and 
the chin to oblivion ; what is more, he’d have to 
look ‘eccentricity’ up in the schoolhouse diction- 


223 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


ary, then chuckle into his corn-cob pipe, because, 
all the time, he’d been rather inconvenienced by 
an angel unawares !” 

Anne gave a great, droll sigh. “I give up 
vanity from this hour,” she announced solemnly. 
“I shall bob my precious pigtails and take to 
blue- jeans !” 

“I rather think not,” laughed Marr. “All that 
is a part of your strength while you last. Intro- 
spective people always see things through them- 
selves, and the pigtails and the ruffles won’t hurt. 
Who’s there?” He suddenly sat up, and they all 
started at a tap on the door. 

The imperturbable maid entered with a note 
for Marr on her tray. There was a special de- 
livery stamp on the envelope. Then she closed 
the door and he came back to the lamp. 
“Humph!” and his mouth compressed and the 
corners drew down. He tore it open carefully 
and read it to himself. “Well, I’m damned,” 
he said gently, with a profound glance over his 
glasses at the two. Then he crumpled the letter 
and put it in his pocket. “Stetson, your aunt 
and your cousin are leaving for Vermont to- 


224 } 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


morrow morning. I, for one, am glad of it, con- 
found ’em!” 

“So am I,” said Victor, so conclusively that 
Anne’s misgivings all fled. 

“Aren’t we to know what she says ?” asked the 
girl, feminine to the last. 

“Nothing worth the reading,” said Marr, 
briefly. He went to a cabinet in a corner and 
brought out a decanter of mellow liquor and 
poured out three generous glasses. “On your 
feet,” he commanded. He held his glass high 
and clinked theirs lightly. “Let ’em stay in 
Vermont!” he said solemnly. “Delicious, is it 
not?” he smiled, putting down his glass and look- 
ing rather ashamed of himself. 

“Ruth and the Man-eater get home to-mor- 
row,” said Anne, bridging a silence that was 
somehow embarrassing. “Might we not ask them 
to come on Wednesday?” 

“Just the thing,” said Victor. “Little Ruth 
likes nothing better than weddings. We’ll ask 
them?” He turned to Marr. 

“Of course,” said the man. “A girl who has 
been to her own wedding and still likes nothing 


225 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


so well as weddings, must be an unusual girl. I 
shall no doubt profit by meeting a fellow man- 
eater, too. After all,” he ruminated, with his 
eyes on the ceiling, “we must give the devil her 
due. Your relative seems to have a certain 
genius, Stetson, for getting herself elected to be 
every one’s aunt! Every one except me,” he 
laughed. “I’m immune!” 

That night before Marr went to bed he un- 
locked a drawer in his desk and took out a little 
package of letters. They were tied with a com- 
mon string and there was about them more the 
systematic neatness of a man of method than the 
treasure of a man of sentimentality. He smiled 
as he laid the crumpled letter from his pocket 
with the rest and retied the string. “The same 
kind of paper, the same writing, the same tem- 
per, by George !” he laughed to himself. “Aga- 
tha is a strong woman !” 


226 


CHAPTER XX 


I can not speak, nor think, 

Nor dare to know that which I know. 

— Shakespeare. 

While Marr with his heart was doing his best 
to remember again a girl of “yesterday” and 
with his mind was helping Anne toward the 
truth as he saw it, while John was hunting hon- 
esty in the eccentricities of upper Broadway, 
another thread of the same tangle was being 
sorted out by Catherine and her Aunt Agatha 
Tyler in their hotel. And the busy, wise spider 
of circumstance snapped his eyes to see, and spun 
and spun. The gray festoons of cloth-of-web 
hang over the city from its roofs, its tree-tops 
and its spires, until it is a miracle that the sun 
ever finds his way through at all. 

The clock over the fireplace had just chimed 
ten — a hideous little clock of brass and onyx, 
every one of its elaborated inches telling beneath 
its boast of thousands on thousands cast in the 

m 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


very same mold. John had said he would be 
back by nine o’clock : he was now an hour late — 
such a slow hour to Catherine. Many things, 
she told herself, might happen to keep the most 
earnest man back an hour in a city of such dis- 
tances. Just the same she was frightened. 

As they went down to dinner, Mrs. Tyler had 
sent a special delivery letter to some one, but with 
so forbidding an air that she had not ventured a 
question ; she was afraid to know. For the first 
time in her life the girl was being really slighted, 
and something akin to resentment was strug- 
gling for breath within her. She went over to 
the long glass between the two windows that 
faced the avenue and pretended to arrange her 
hair. It was faultless enough, but she wanted 
to look at herself, to ask herself if she deserved 
such treatment, such neglect. She had dressed 
as John liked her best to-night, because he had 
been so gentle with her when her aunt had lost 
her temper in the afternoon. She had been so 
sure he would make everything right; she was 
sure now, of course she was. To dress as he 
liked her best was to please by a feminine high- 
way, a frank highway that many follow in fran- 
228 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


tic zeal, a highway that comes out nowhere be- 
cause it makes a circle. And it is lined all the 
way around with terrifying mirrors. 

The art of being complex was to the girl a 
blind alley ; she did not dream of contrariness as 
a healthy dash of cool water, as a charm that 
might produce a saving shock. Her dress was 
of creamy lace, girlish in design, — John loved a 
rich dress of white ; about her waist was a narrow 
belt of black satin, — John appreciated a bit of 
rich black; the belt was drawn snugly with a 
tiny rose-gold clasp, — that she risked for her- 
self ; at her belt was a heavy bunch of rich scar- 
let geraniums, John’s flower; and her beautiful 
fair hair was brushed till it shone like a well-reg- 
ulated halo about her face. And the face? She 
gazed furtively into the mirror and for the mo- 
ment felt assured. “But why, why does he not 
come?” 

Agatha Tyler had dressed, too, but not in 
white. Dress was, with her, as feathers and 
paint with an Indian. When especially annoyed 
she donned a dress of black net, very expensive, 
and embroidered all over with bright steel and 
jet points, the whole made over a ground of un- 

229 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


compromising black silk. The result was regal, 
if forbidding, and the thousand and one little 
points of light seemed to respond to her mood, 
to snap and snarl and glitter as she did not quite 
dare do. Catherine knew the garb for a sign 
and walked with care till it had gone back to the 
wardrobe. 

“No doubt you think yourself rather good- 
looking,” commented Agatha Tyler, tossing 
aside a magazine with an ill-concealed yawn. 
“I judge from the papers that there are no more 
jokes in the world,” she added cheerfully. 

Catherine’s quick blush was telltale, but she 
was too preoccupied to be resentful. She was 
used to the acrid old woman and had learned to 
listen without hearing. If one isn’t killed by 
it too soon one may become accustomed to any 
sort of noise. 

“And you are a handsome girl, decidedly 
handsome,” added Agatha Tyler, her eyes snap- 
ping with family pride. “I should punish the 
young man severely for his negligence.” 

The girl turned and observed her aunt in 
frank amazement. She scarcely remembered 
ever having been praised before. Catherine was 
230 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


negative by nature and loved peace; they never 
quarreled because she took whatever came along 
rather than have a scene. But, after all was said 
and done, they did depend upon each other, and 
after their own natures had no little love for 
each other. “Something must have happened,” 
she murmured, and could not have said whether 
she meant to her aunt or to John. 

“I should think so,” was the short response. 
Catherine could think of nothing to say ; so for 
a while the room was still except for the clap- 
clap of hoofs on the pavements and the hum of 
gay human traffic in the street below. But Mrs. 
Tyler was tired of all her resources, the papers 
were stupid, and Catherine’s affairs were in the 
balance. She decided that the girl must be made 
to talk whether she liked or not, and she put the 
papers finally aside. She raised her lorgnette 
and sat back in her chair. 

“No doubt John decided to take that impos- 
sible girl out to dine. She may even decide to 
marry him instead of your cousin Victor before 
Wednesday. I shouldn’t be surprised if they 
were married already! If you had listened to 
me in the first place and had left these dreadful 

m 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Bohemian people to their paint and their bad 
manners you would not be sitting here now in 
your best clothes and with no one but your aunt 
to see. See what meddling with people beneath 
his class has done for poor Victor. I suppose if 
this thing continues you’ll be taking to short 
skirts and trying to ‘do something’ yourself 
next, — though I promise you, you’ll not, as 
long as I am alive to prevent it. I am certain 
the life they lead is outrageously improper.” 

“But, Auntie,” gasped Catherine, “you do 
not realize what awful things you are saying!” 
She sat up straight and a new determination was 
born to her of her aunt’s injustice. “Do you 
know, Auntie, I think we have never been just 
to Anne Preston? She is very pretty, and John 
says she is very talented and smart, and no end 
of fun, once you know her, and she is interesting 
even when you just meet her as we did. I do 
wish,” she sighed drearily as her eyes wandered 
back to the brazen-faced clock, “that I knew 
how to be interesting !” 

“Heaven forbid!” said the woman, fervidly. 
“Nothing so certainly upsets a family as an ‘in- 
teresting’ child.” 


232 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“But, Auntie,” smiled Catherine, “she has 
been very good to Victor. Didn’t Doctor Marr 
say she had been perfectly devoted to him?” 

“Don’t speak of that man to me!” and the 
steel and jet twinkled as she fidgeted in her 
chair. “Who is this girl ? Answer me that !” 

“John says — ” Catherine began. 

“ ‘John says — ’ ” echoed Mrs. Tyler. “John 
is under her thumb like all the rest.” 

“Besides, Auntie, it is only fair to wait till 
we know what has happened. I am nearly sure 
that it will all turn out to be right.” 

“When you are as old as I am you will have 
discovered that where there are a man and an- 
other woman in the case nothing is sure except 
that you will, more than likely, be left in the 
lurch ! Why, John acts as if he thought he had 
already married you. It is presumptuous. I 
never saw such lack of consideration in all my 
life! It is a very inconvenient period of civiliza- 
tion for a young man who has something to ex- 
plain : there is a telegraph office at every corner. 
There can be no excuse unless he has had the 
grace to break his neck. Nothing so respectable 


233 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


as an honestly broken neck ever happens in these 
scandalous times!” 

Catherine looked so weary and so hopeless that 
for a moment the old face softened. The deso- 
lation that happens to inexperience is as sad as 
the trouble that comes upon the heels of wilful 
wrong. Though she stormed and abused the 
girl, she was, after all, her favorite sister’s child 
and the only member of her family near or far 
who would live with her. She knew she would be 
lonely beyond endurance after Catherine had 
married and had left her home in Vermont. 
Though she slighted the girl herself she would 
not endure the breach from any one else. 

“I must say, Catherine, I should like to see 
you show some pride in this matter. Reprimand 
the young man as he deserves, or I shall be 
obliged to do so myself.” She wished profound- 
ly that the engagement might be broken, and 
made up her mind if that were once brought 
about she would see to it that it remained broken. 

It was all Catherine could do to keep the tears 
back. She sat at a be-Watteaued gilt desk and 
trailed a pen idly over sheet after sheet of the 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


heavily crested hotel note paper, getting comfort 
out of marring the smooth, blank pages. The 
unwritten paper irritated her nearly as much as 
did the eternally slow ticking of the clock. 

Agatha Tyler, getting no response, rose 
stiffly. It occurred to her that this was no light 
matter to the girl, unworthy as John might be, 
and when she spoke her tone was far from un- 
kind. “If you take my advice, child, you will 
quit that aimless scribbling and write the young 
man plainly that you will not endure such treat- 
ment ; in fact, that your aunt will not allow you 
to. Tell him that for me. Then come home 
with me to-morrow.” 

“Oh, no, Auntie, please, not that!” and the 
girl bowed her head on the little desk and cried 
like the child she was. The scarlet geraniums 
fell out of her belt and were in some danger of 
being crushed under Mrs. Tyler’s feet. 

Agatha Tyler was a handsome woman, and as 
she stood directly beneath the electric lights 
with her splendid white hair coiled about her 
strong head and the steel and jet flickering and 
crinkling, one guessed easily how nearly beau- 
tiful she must have been as a girl. Her voice 
235 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


was shaken by a half-resentful sympathy for 
Catherine. She hated hearing a woman cry as 
a man hates it. 

“Catherine, child,” she said, “who is this John 
Warren that he should make my niece unhappy? 
Put him aside; no man is worth your unhappi- 
ness to me. You look like your mother, my sis- 
ter Constance, to-night, more than ever before, 
though you are always like her. I was fond of 
her, dear, and I am fond of you, and I can not 
stand it that an ill-mannered painter should 
make you miserable. I would rather have you 
the veriest New England spinster than the wife 
of this man, anyway. I do not like him, though 
I have tried my best. I really have, Catherine.” 
She held her head high and tapped the carpet 
with her foot as she remembered how the ill- 
mannered painter had wheedled the truth out 
of her by just sitting in a confidential, intimate 
way on the table by her side. 

“He is selfish to the core. I have always be- 
lieved there were worse fates in this world than 
not marrying at all, and all the Warrens and 
the Marrs in the universe are not likely to 
change my opinion.” 


236 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“But it means everything to me,” moaned the 
girl. “Oh, you don’t, you can’t understand, or 
you would not talk so.” 

“I don’t, I can’t understand!” echoed the 
woman in a lower voice. “Perhaps not,” and she 
sighed. “And perhaps, Catherine, I understand 
better than you do yourself. Only I know the 
worth of things better. I have had time to see 
how they wear.” She moved over by the girl 
and rested her hand on her head, a rare tender- 
ness for her. “Now, dear, do as I say. Go into 
your room and wash the tears out of your eyes : 
to waste your good looks on an undeserving man 
is extravagance indeed. Then come back here 
and take a fresh piece of paper and write the 
young man to go his own way.” 

“I can not, I can not,” sobbed the girl. 

The woman stooped painfully and picked up 
the geraniums and stood absently fingering 
them ; brilliant they were near the silver hair and 
the black dress. Then she laid them gently on 
the desk near the girl’s flushed face and turned 
to leave the room. At her door she paused. 
“Besides, Catherine, if he is worth anything at 
all, being thrown over once or twice will simply 
237 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


stimulate him and, mark me, he’ll come back, with 
his straight- j acket on, too! Men, men!” she 
sighed ironically. “Between men and her teeth 
a woman has trouble all the way from the cradle 
to the grave. And do not imagine that a hand- 
some woman ever escapes for a moment. Man 
carries her dead and puts her into the ground, 
and with some of her aching teeth still in her 
head! Tiresome, child, and scarcely worth all 
the tears and trouble.” The indignant woman 
went wearily into her room with her shoulders 
proudly erect under their burden of cynicism 
and jet and steel. 

Just before the daylight, the same daylight 
that found John turning the studied order of his 
studio into chaos, a tired, shaken girl, with her 
fair hair all about her shoulders, whispered, 
“Auntie,” and threw herself down on her knees 
by the old woman’s bed. “Auntie, dear, I have 
done as I, — as you said I should, — and I want to 
go back home.” 

“Why, Catherine, child,” said the startled 
woman. “Come here to me !” 

The warm young arms were around her neck 
at once in the brave dark. “Oh,” she sobbed, 
288 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“you must help me, you must, Auntie. There is 
no one else, and I am so unhappy.” 

“There need be no one else,” and the old arms 
held her fiercely. “There, there,” she whispered 
soothingly; “I wrote Marr that we were going 
home in the morning. I knew that you would be 
a good girl and come with me. It will be all 
right once we are there.” And for the first time 
in perhaps twenty years, there in the brave, 
brave dark, Agatha Tyler’s eyes were wet. 
“Just hop in here beside me and go to sleep. 
Cry all you want to : it is the best way.” Cath- 
erine clung to her like a child, and slowly the 
sobs ceased and after a while the girl slept from 
exhaustion. Agatha Tyler raised herself on her 
arm to watch her curiously and her hand touched 
something cool. By the pungent scent she knew 
that Catherine was clinging to her geraniums. 
“Poor little girl, foolish child!” she sighed and 
smiled. Then she carefully unclasped the fingers 
and dropped the flowers behind the bed. “Not 
a good thing for her to see the first thing in the 
morning,” she said to herself. And the morning 
light came prying after a while and marked a 
new line or two in the old face, but withal an 
unusual gentleness. 


239 


CHAPTER XXI 


The window itself is dark; but see! — a firefly 
is creeping up the paper pane ! 

—Japanese Poem. 

THE CONTRACT. 

This is to certify that on the fifteenth day 
of September at eleven o’clock of the forenoon, 

in the year of our Lord , at the sanatorium 

of Alexander Marr, in this city of New York, 
borough of Manhattan, before me, Franklin An- 
drews, a commissioner of deeds for the city of 
New York, personally appeared: — 

Victor Stetson, an illustrator, holding resi- 
dence at his place, Vineland, near the city of 
Chicago, in the state of Illinois, and Anne Pres- 
ton, of — West Fiftieth street, city of New 
York, borough of Manhattan, and in the pres- 
ence of Ruth Bowen Rathburn, residing at — 
West Fiftieth street, city of New York, borough 
of Manhattan, and Alexander Marr, physician 
and specialist, residing at his sanatorium, in 
240 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


West Seventieth street, city of New York, bor- 
ough of Manhattan, personally known to me and 
who also to me identified the said Victor Stetson 
and Anne Preston, who declared severally and 
acknowledged, in my presence and in the pres- 
ence of each other, and in the presence of said 
Ruth Bowen Rathburn and Alexander Marr, 
whose names are subscribed as witnesses hereto, 
that they severally took each other, as husband 
and wife, and had entered into that relation unto 
each other through life. 

Anne Preston. 

Victor Stetson. 

Sealed and delivered in the presence of 

Ruth Bowen Rathburn, 
Alexander Marr, 

Witnesses. 


241 


CHAPTER XXII 


Outside was all noon and the burning blue. 

— Browning. 

Arizona: the sick man with his God in exile 
only knows the desert, and he seldom speaks of 
the thing he knows. All about him stretch the 
dragging, depressed sands ; all above him 
stretches the polished blue sky, staring him in 
the face with his own sick mood. Be he soul-sick 
or body-sick, it is flung back upon him ; despair 
by night and cynicism by day. It is only once 
in a way that one goes to the territory without 
a secret. The law, or the greed of gold, or dis- 
ease has urged him with the whisper, 4 4 The last 
resort !” 

And the desert takes up the whisper, the stale 
ground flings it back, and the garrulous little 
church bells toll it, frantic and shrill. Even 
the man back of the bells huskily carries along 
the burden, for disease does not discriminate be- 
tween virtue and vice, between generosity and 
242 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


selfishness. So the earnest voice back of the 
bells is clouded, too, and his horror-stricken 
Mother Church puts the alarming incongruity 
away from her merciful sight; sends him into 
the desert at her own expense, where the man 
who has made a living by telling other men how 
to die is given his chance to show the other dying 
how the thing should be done. And the little 
bells ring up the curtain every seventh day ; the 
seventh that looks so like the other six. “The 
last resort!” The dirge of the great south- 
west. 

Somehow disease is never so stern of aspect 
upon women as upon men. Women, like the 
flowers, wear the frost-blight with a certain del- 
icacy, with a weather-eye to art. One looks on 
them and is asked to look again, and if the 
quick tears start at sympathy there is always the 
woman-smile back of the tears. But upon a big- 
framed, one-time-strong, young man, with his 
soul begging behind his dry, averted eyes, one 
does not look twice, scarce once; and that look 
too often stamps upon the marrow an image of 
hunted self-horror. 

The long trains, dust-choked and seldom on 

243 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


time, crawl over the desert from the north and 
the south, from the east and the west, bringing 
and taking, to and from the towns of the exiled. 
It is hope at its blindest that can find as much 
as a mirage to pin its faith to. Anne and Victor 
and Miss Thompson went out by the southern 
way, and a day in New Orleans, and another in 
San Antonio, broke the strain; but, from San 
Antonio on, monotony held the stage. They did 
their best to keep Victor’s eyes away from the 
discouraging outlook, but every inch of the car 
was pressed down with silence and blanketed to 
suffocation with heat. The glaring sun refused 
to let one speck of dust swim unnoticed. 

But between Maricopa and Phoenix the thirsty 
soul and body have a drink. An oasis it is, rank 
with green growing things, the flats graciously 
spread with a rich carpet of alfalfa. In the 
great need of the moment the sea of sand just 
beyond is forgotten, and the wanderer arrives in 
a state of pathetic enthusiasm. The noise and 
bustle of the arrival of the trains stir the station 
to life and serve to feed the illusion, — till the 
train has gone again. Then the tick-tick of the 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


telegraph is like listening to the beating of one’s 
own frightened heart in the night. 

The three, with bags and bundles and rugs, 
stood half-bewildered on the platform. 

“Cab, sir?” and at Anne’s side appeared a 
young man, green-eyed, red-headed, and with 
freckles that looked like rusty nail-heads. He 
stood clasping his arms with his big hands as if 
they might otherwise fall off. 

“My name is Daniel Dixon, and I drive my 
own cab.” He waved an arm toward the edge 
of the platform where the cab was waiting, then 
instantly clasped his arms again. 

“Why, yes,” said Anne, looking into the clear, 
good-natured, round-eyed face. “Will you help 
me with all these traps?” 

“You bet,” said Danny, briskly swinging the 
things up to the driver’s seat. He at once rec- 
ognized her as mistress of the situation. 
“Darned hot, ain’t it? Stan’ still, can’t you, 
you darned Indians!” he shouted at his fly- 
besieged ponies. 

Anne glanced at them doubtfully. “Are they 
quite — gentle?” she asked. 


24>5 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Reg’lar lambs,” grinned Danny. 

Anne laughed. 4 4 It is only that it is necessary 
to be careful, you know,” she said. Danny be- 
came serious at once and helped Victor in with 
real gentleness. Miss Thompson put a pillow 
under his head with the matter-of-fact manner 
of professional right that the stubbornest man 
seldom contradicts, and Anne took the seat by 
his side. “Pretty tired?” she asked low. 

“Yes, but I like to hear him talk,” he smiled. 
“Pll laugh with you when I get my breath.” 

Daniel Dixon climbed into his high seat with 
a great, droll sigh over the effort. He blinked 
into space a moment, then as if Anne’s speech 
had just reached over some roundabout wireless 
way, he said: “You’re right. You can’t be too 
careful jest at first.” The ponies started 
briskly, but Danny knew his team. “Reg’lar 
devils, them two, fer bluffin’,” he remarked, and 
bent his back and cocked his hat indifferently, 
just to show her that they were all right. He 
glanced down over his rusty, alpaca coat-sleeve 
at the girl. 44 You look sandy ’nough. Now I 
bet you ain’t afraid of a horse.” 

Anne had been glancing rapidly about and 

m 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


had caught the dusty, depressing appearance of 
the place, and she dreaded, as every one does, the 
first giving in to the silence. She kept Danny 
talking. “I’m not much afraid,” she admitted 
with a smile that settled Danny. 

“I’ll take you a ride some day when it ain’t so 
dad-blasted hot,” he said, mopping his face with 
a handkerchief of ornate border. “Reckon I 
know every inch of the whole blamed sand-pile, 
an’ the mountains, too,” and his green eyes 
looked ahead proudly. But in another moment 
the back had wilted to its customary pose of 
chronic fatigue and he yawned and flecked his 
whip lazily at the passing pepper trees. 
“Which hotel?” he asked with a chuckle as he 
drew in the ponies. “S’pose we’d jest rode cn 
to ’Frisco ’f I hadn’t ’a’ come to !” 

Every one laughed and looked a little foolish. 
“ ‘The Sunny Days,’ ” said Anne. “I’m sorry I 
was so stupid. Have we gone much out of the 
way ?” 

“That’s nothin’,” said Danny, cheerfully. 
Skilfully he turned the ponies in the narrow 
street. “Ain’t any of ’em more ’n a stone-throw 
apart, an’ I don’t mind goin’ the long way round. 

m 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


It’s more excitin’ than sittin’ till next train-time 
a-talkin’ to myself or goin’ to the stable and 
gettin’ the devil from pap.” He paused a while 
to rest, then asked, “Goin’ to stay long?” 

“Oh, yes,” answered Anne, drowning the 
dreariness out of her voice. “We’ll live here, 
more than likely.” 

“Gosh a’mighty!” exclaimed Danny, serious- 
ly. “The whole bunch of you a-going to put up 
at Mis’ Gritz’s? I’d hate to haf to pay the 
fare!” 

“Maybe we’ll buy a farm after we have looked 
about a bit,” suggested Victor. 

Danny Dixon was, in his own way, a shy 
young man, and he never made advances. But 
now he turned about and looked at Victor with 
a beaming smile. “Now, will you jest listen to 
that !” he said to Anne. “Feelin’ better already, 
ain’t you?” Then he chuckled to himself and 
added : “But I reckon you won’t find many farms 
lyin’ loose around here.” 

“How about ranches ?” asked Anne, with a su- 
perior glance at Victor. 

Danny slapped his knee. “Now you’re 
a-shoutin’.” Then he turned to Victor again. 
248 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Reckon there ain’t ’nother climate like this ’n 
on earth. Pap says there ain’t, an’ he’s been 
round a lot, pap has. Yep ; he’s been ’s far east 
’s Kansas City once, an’ he used to drive the 
stage ’tween here an’ Los Angeles ’fore the rail- 
road come by here so as to give me a job.” 

“Interesting,” said Anne, resolving to meet 
Danny’s pap. 

“You bet yer life,” agreed Danny. All at 
once he sat up straight with an approach to 
real interest in every one of his shambling lines. 
“Whew!” he whistled. “Now, if that ain’t a 
peach bunch ’f clouds ! They’s cumulous clouds, 
by Jinks !” He got to his feet and stood bal- 
ancing himself perfectly with the lines high in 
one hand and the whip in the other till Anne 
thought in her soul they’d land in an irrigating 
canal. Danny collapsed as suddenly as he had 
risen. “You’ll jest haf to excuse me,” he said 
sheepishly. “Good thing pap wasn’t around to 
catch me a-doin’ stunts with passengers aboard. 
He’d a-whaled me fer that, he would. But 
’t ain’t often you see ’s fine an example of cumu- 
lous clouds as them this time of year.” 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Anne and Victor exchanged a puzzled glance. 
“You seem to know a good deal about cloud 
forms,” she suggested. 

“Well,” and Danny scratched his head with 
his big freckled hand, “it’s all I do know ’bout, 
and it seems ’s if a fellow’s got to know ’bout 
somethin’ out here or he’s liable to jest ferget to 
wake up some sunshiny mornin’. Nothin’ much 
happens, you know, an’ bein’ nat’rally excitable 
— pap says I’m the darndest ever born fer ex- 
citement — I get sort of upset when a good-sized 
cloud comes a-whizzin’ by,” and he added 
a note of realism by whizzing his long whip and 
the ponies did their best to continue the dramatic 
effect. “Here’s yer shanty standin’ here 
a-waitin’ fer you an’ lookin’ ’bout ’s it did last 
time I come by !” said Danny ; and with a 
“Whoa!” and many flourishes of the whip, he 
drew up in a cloud of dust before the “Sunny 
Days.” 


250 


CHAPTER XXIII 


A rustic world ; sunshiny, lewd, and cruel. 

— Robert Louis Stevenson. 

It required but a glance to interpret the at- 
mosphere of the “Sunny Days.” A square red- 
brick house it was, with green blinds and white 
trimmings, all reduced to a tone by the dust 
that rested undisturbed on the stupid face of 
things. A clay sidewalk ran from the street 
to the steps of the “stoop”, and rickety were 
both steps and “stoop”. On each side of the 
walk was laid out a square patch of trampled 
sand, and in the center of each patch a pepper 
tree found it possible to thrive, paying for the 
possibility by a reasonable return of shade. 
On the stoop-rails and the steps was a burden 
of sun-soaked invalids, perched there like a fam- 
ily of turtles on a log at midday. In the door- 
way, with one fat hand on the latch of the 
screen and the other reposing on the band of 
her muslin apron, stood Angelina Gritz, propri- 
251 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


etor, manager, and cook-at-large of the estab- 
lishment. 

Victor was completely tired out, and Anne, 
after paying Danny the fares, took his arm 
and walked slowly by his side to the house, Dan- 
ny and Miss Thompson following with the lug- 
gage. The entrance of the new-comer is often 
as tragic as his exit. He seldom takes much part 
in the exit, and there is at least one less to suffer. 
The indolent ones on the steps moved aside with 
unusual interest. It was uncommon to see a 
young man sent into exile so well guarded and 
cared for. 

“The hotel’s ’bout full-up,” mentioned Mrs. 
Gritz, chewing gum with an achievement of self- 
unconsciousness and frankly counting and ap- 
praising the baggage. 

Anne’s heart went down, but suddenly Danny 
appeared by her side and though he looked half 
asleep he seemed to know the right thing to 
say. “I’ll jest stay round, Mis’ Gritz, an’ if 
you ain’t got room fer ’em I’ll drive ’em right 
over to Mis’ Farrar’s.” 

“You, Danny Dixon, you go along ’bout yer 
biznis,” and there was lightning in Angelina 
252 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Gritz’s bright blue glance. “I’ll jest speak to 
yer pap ’bout the way you hang round 
a-puttin’ yer freckled finger into other people’s 
pie!” Then she held the screen wide. “Step 
right into the parlor, please,” she said with gut- 
turals for elegance. “And you, Danny, you set 
them valises an’ things down on the stoop, and 
don’t you bring yer dusty boots into my house !” 
Waving her apron at the flies, she slammed the 
door for accent, then came waddling into the 
parlor. 

“I s’pose like as not that boy’s been a-stuffin’ 
you all the way up from the deepo. He’s jest 
an awful worry to his pap: such a nice man, 
too! There ain’t no accountin’ fer children 
these days,” she sighed, wagging her plump 
little jaw over her chewing-gum. “Ever since 
them geo-ology-men come out here from Wash- 
ington, D. C., and wouldn’t have nobody but 
that Danny to show ’em round, there ain’t 
been no livin’ in the same town with him. I 
reckon there ain’t no real harm in him ’cept he’s 
fer ever round under a person’s feet.” She 
took a rocking-chair and drew it directly in 
front of Anne and Victor, who seemed anything 
253 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


but at home with the ingrain carpet upholstery. 
“ ’Bout how much room do you want?” she 
asked, looking them in the eye with the shrewd 
curiosity that says it won’t be swindled, — a look 
that women proprietors always wear. No doubt 
they think they must. 

“We want three rooms and a bath,” said 
Victor. 

“Bath !” and Angelina doubled up with mirth. 
“The idea! There ain’t no water to spare fer 
new-fangled notions out here, I tell you!” She 
hitched her chair a foot nearer and with a lapse 
into the very depths of the confidential she 
asked, “Married?” Every one jumped and An- 
gelina tweaked her small nose and laughed 
again. 

“My name is Stetson,” said Victor, a little 
stiffly, for he was getting too tired to see things 
in a funny light, “and this is my wife, and Miss 
Thompson is a trained nurse and will stay with 
us as long as it seems necessary, — certainly till 
we can be sure if the climate is best for me.” 

“Climate’s all right,” said Angelina, making 
frantic effort to repress her amusement and 
shaking silently till Anne thought her clothes 
25 4 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


must burst. “Guess you ain’t said c my wife’ 
more’n a thousand times before. You can’t fool 
me !” She shook her plump finger. “I ain’t been 
in the hotel biznis fifteen years fer nothin’, not 
much! Five years while John Gritz was 
a-livin’. He died of chronic dyspepsia, John 
did: like as not it jest come from my ’lowin’ 
him round the kitchen and his jest a-nibblin’ 
this an’ that whenever he took a notion. An’ 
I have had the house ten years now on my own 
hook, an’ done mighty well, too, with all these 
sharks for competition out here.” She flushed 
dangerously and Anne wondered if “Mis’ Far- 
rar” was the particular shark. “You want to 
take care of yerself, young lady,” she said sud- 
denly to Anne. “I don’t know if I’ve got suitable 
rooms. How long you a-goin’ to stay?” 

“Till Mr. Stetson is entirely well again,” said 
Anne, firmly. 

“Now that’s somethin’ like,” said Angelina, 
getting vigorously to her feet. “Mr. Stetson, 
an’ you, Miss Thompson, you jest set here in the 
parlor and make yerselves to home while I show 
Mis’ Stetson the rooms. ’Twon’t take no time, 
an’ then I’ll make you a cup of good strong 
255 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


tea, fer it does beat all the way drinkin’ some- 
thin’ hot does cool off a person’s inside these 
scorchin’ days, though it does seem a good deal 
like a-slappin’ a flat-iron with a wet towel!” 
When she and Anne had gone out of hearing 
down the hall she stopped and asked in a stage 
whisper, “Only one of you is a ‘lunger’?” 

“A what?” and Anne drew back aghast. 

“Lunger,” Angelina repeated, coughing by 
way of illustration. “Lan’ sakes, you’ll get used 
to that. It’s what they calls ’emselves. You 
see, Mis’ Stetson, it’s like this with me. I don’t 
like takin’ fatal cases, ’cause it gives my reg’lars 
the blues. An’ I’ve got some real nice young 
men a-livin’ in the house. That Miss Corwin 
out there on the stoop is the only girl an’ she 
ain’t much account, goodness knows, but girls 
is girls, an’ the sickest young man likes ’em 
around, sort of cheers ’em up, you know. I 
haven’t time to do much but feed ’em myself. 
I’d like havin’ you if he ain’t very bad, because 
you’d cheer ’em up, I know. Bein’ well an’ 
good-lookin’ an’ all. Mr. Stetson looks pretty 
tuckered out, but maybe it’s the ridin’ on the 
cars.” 


256 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“That is all, Mrs. Gritz. He is worn out 
with the journey. The doctor gives us every 
encouragement.” Anne sighed as she looked in- 
to the depths of the burden she had lifted. 

“Come far?” asked Angelina, fitting a key 
into the door. 

“New York,” said Anne, absently. 

“For the Ian’ sake!” gasped Angelina with a 
stare. “The poor man ! Why, cornin’ all that 
way ’d tire out a drummer, to say nothin’ of a 
lunger !” 

There were two adjoining rooms, a small 
rusty stove in the corner of one, and windows 
to the south and east. “We must have a fire 
whenever Mr. Stetson wants one, even if it seems 
warm enough to you and me, Mrs. Gritz,” said 
Anne. 

“Now,” beamed Angelina, “that’s jest the 
way I like havin’ folks speak up. It pays in the 
long run. John Gritz was all his life in a peck 
of trouble with one person or another ’cause he 
was so chicken-hearted ’bout speakin’ up in the 
first place. We’ll have a fire right now, if you 
say so,” she laughed, mopping her low brow 
that was wrinkled like an inquisitive pup’s. 

257 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“But, there now, you mustn’t pay no ’tention 
to me. I’ve always got to have my joke. I don’t 
see no use makin’ a long face ’bout things, spe- 
cially,” she laughed, “when the Lord give you 
a round one to set you goin’ with. I always 
get ’long with my boarders jest splendid.” 

Anne smiled and thanked her. She was get- 
ting glimpses of the heart underneath the crudi- 
ties. Angelina was a healthy, happy sort of 
plant rooted by chance in a soil that made cheer- 
fulness seem a little tragic. But the girl paused 
frightened before some of the things Angelina 
found it possible to joke about. 

Then they brought Victor up and had him 
lie down while they put the rooms in order. 
“The car-builders don’t arrange for six-footers,” 
he smiled. “Isn’t it a joy to be still and warm?” 
He turned his head and closed his eyes. 

Angelina, who had nearly carried him upstairs 
in spite of his protests, stood with her hands 
clasped over her undulating waist-line. “Now 
maybe you’d jest ruther sleep till supper time 
than be bothered with tea?” 

Victor looked up at her and smiled. “Yes, 
thanks, I’ll sleep, I think. How good you are !” 
258 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


That settled Angelina and she waddled down- 
stairs and informed the loungers on the stoop 
that the “new ’rivals is the real thing !” 

Miss Thompson had a room down the hall and 
while she was getting her own things in order 
and opening Anne’s bags for her in the back 
room, Anne sat with Victor. She had hardly 
gone into Anne’s room when hysterical laugh- 
ing from Victor brought her quickly to the 
door. That he wanted to laugh was a good 
sign, but as weak as he was it was a danger, too. 
In spite of herself she joined in. 

Anne was rocking madly around the room 
with one hand clasped over an imaginary apron 
band and working her jaw dangerously. “I can 
do it, I can!” she said triumphantly. “It’s as 
hard as rubbing your stomach and patting your 
head. Married?” she finished explosively, com- 
ing to a stop by Victor’s bed. 

“Now, Mrs. Stetson,” said Miss Thompson, 
trying her best not to smile, “I shall not leave 
you with my patient if you are going to behave 
so.” 

“Oh, let her be,” said Victor. “She beats 
sleeping.” 


259 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


When Miss Thompson came in Anne slipped 
downstairs to take a look at things. She pro- 
duced an immediate silence upon the group on 
the stoop, a silence that spells guilt and lazy 
tact. “Don’t move, please,” she said to the men 
on the steps. “There is room to get by. I just 
came down to look about.” 

“Going to stay?” asked the pale Miss Cor- 
win, eagerly. 

“Why, yes,” said Anne. “I think so. Every 
one seems very kind. It is just a question of 
whether the climate is best for Mr. Stetson.” 
As she walked on down the steps each of the in- 
dolent ones turned the name “Stetson” over in 
his mind, wondering if he had known any Stet- 
son back east. 

At the street Anne stopped and as she looked 
down-town she laughed, for over in the spotted 
shade of a cottonwood tree, the pink sunshine 
freckling things even as Danny was freckled, 
was the cab, and Danny taking a nap on the 
back seat. He had gone a safe distance from 
Angelina’s wrath, and, for completer repose, had 
hitched his ponies to the tree. She crossed over 


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A GINGHAM ROSE 


and stood looking at him till he wakened with 
a mighty start. 

“I jest thought I’d wait round,” he ex- 
plained sheepishly. He climbed out and Anne 
sat down on the floor of the cab and tucked her 
feet out of the dust on the steps. 

“I am glad you did, because you can tell me 
about things,” she said. 

Danny blushed furiously. “Well” — he turned 
his hat about in his hands — “there ain’t much to 
tell. You get so you don’t care ’bout nothin’ 
jest so you are ’lowed to set still. Even talkin’ 
goes back on you after a while. Yer ears ache 
till they feel like bustin’, it’s so still, sometimes. 
You see,” he explained, “there ain’t a darned 
thing to make a noise.” He glanced at her side- 
wise a moment, then asked awkwardly : “He ain’t 
very bad off, is he?” 

“Oh, no,” said Anne. “He is very tired. I 
made him laugh a little while ago and got sent 
out of the room by the nurse.” The boyish 
something about her came to the surface and 
put Danny at his ease. 

“Come far?” he asked. 


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“New York,” sighed Anne. 

“Gosh!” said Danny, and something seemed 
to stiffen his spine. Then he slapped his knee 
and laughed till he grew red as a poppy. “My 
boastin’ ’bout pap’s havin’ been to Kansas City 
must have tickled you some.” Then he grew 
serious. “I’m goin’ about myself some day, if 
I don’t get sun-baked fer good before business 
picks up. It’s mighty easy doin’ nothin’, ain’t 
it? Nice outfit?” and he waved his hand with 
proprietorship including the ponies and the cab. 
“Pap set me up. Pap don’t think much of me 
as a business man, he don’t.” Danny contem- 
plated Anne a moment, then a smile spread to a 
grin all over his face and at last broke into a 
gurgling laugh. “You remember my say in’ I’d 
take you round to Mis’ Farrar’s if there wasn’t 
room here, and what a rise I got out of An- 
gelina ?” 

“Yes,” laughed Anne. “I couldn’t make it 
out.” 

“Well,” and Danny fairly hugged himself 
with glee, “Mis’ Farrar, she’s a-courtin’ pap, 
and pap, he’s a-courtin’ Mis’ Gritz !” 

“Mercy on us !” laughed Anne. 

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A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Ain’t it great?” gasped Danny, undutiful- 
ly. “Pap ’d skin me alive fer a-tellin’, he would. 
Men is so darned high an’ mighty when they’s 
in love,” and again Danny bent double with 
mirth. 

“You know too much,” said Anne, with a sol- 
emn gaze. 

“Me?” and the green eyes were wide with 
droll incredulity. “Pap says that ’cept fer my 
red hair he’d think me a born fool. He says 
I’m doin’ my best to break the red-headed rule. 
An’ I reckon anybody ’bout town ’d tell you, 
without chargin’ you a cent fer the information, 
that I ain’t got sense enough to get in out of 
the wet, — it bein’ such a rainy climate, you 
know!” he finished dryly. “Don’t have rain 
often enough to remember what it feels like. 
Pap says that’s why I take such an all-fired in- 
terest in clouds. Ain’t ’nough of ’em to worry 
me any.” 

Anne rose and smiled up at Danny till he 
knew himself a slave. “I hope,” she said low, 
in a tone of conspiracy, “that your pap gets 
Mrs. Gritz, because then you’ll come to the 
‘Sunny Days’ to live.” 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“By golly, that’s right,” said Danny, pro- 
foundly. Then, as Anne started away, he sham- 
bled up into his driver’s seat and picked up the 
reins. 

“Better unhitch,” suggested Anne, and, 
laughing, left him red and sheepish but always 
able to join in a laugh on himself. 

Anne smiled at Miss Corwin as she went in 
and shut the screen quietly behind her. 

A long-legged lunger with his legs twisted 
about the palings of the stoop chuckled dryly. 
“She won’t be so flighty after she has been here 
a month or so. They are always like that when 
they first come, especially the women.” He 
threw a sprig from the pepper tree into the lap 
of Miss Corwin. Certainly there was no trace 
of the flighty left in her. 

“Poor girl!” sighed a big hulky fellow with 
stooped shoulders, who was sitting on the lowest 
step whittling a stick. The action and the pierc- 
ing light showed the thinness of his hands terri- 
bly. “Man looked pretty sick. I hate seeing 
them come. He’s lucky, though, haying her. 
I wonder if she really cares!” He yawned and 
stretched himself, but the long arms suddenly 
264 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


collapsed in an ugly cough. “Damn !” he whis- 
pered huskily and went on with the whittling. 

“She’ll know how to take care of herself, I 
guess,” yawned a sun-burned fellow in a chair 
tilted against the wall. He was reading a paper 
two weeks old and drumming a tune with his 
fingers on the leg of his chair. “You are a 
cheerful lot, I must say.” 

“I have noticed that most people about here 
know how to take care of themselves,” said Miss 
Corwin, shrewdly. The man had sound lungs 
and would tell no one why he had come out. 
The lungers exchanged amused glances. 

“You are cross to-day,” laughed the tall fel- 
low on the rail, with a good-natured look into 
the pale girl’s eyes. 

“I guess you were never cross in your life, 
Jerusalem James,” she smiled up at him with 
frank partiality. 

Some humorous one, whom the climate had 
turned into a cynic, had dubbed the tall fellow 
“Jerusalem James” — first, because his mother 
had in the beginning called him James, and sec- 
ond, because, when the lungs got bad and he was 
ordered out southwest, she had obtained his 
265 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


promise always to go to church at least once on 
Sunday ; and go he did, though the others 
laughed and the sermons from the sick man 
“back of the bells” nearly broke his heart. He 
was gentle as a girl and he helped all the rest 
over the hard places with his stingless imperti- 
nences and his awkward drollery. The pale 
Miss Corwin adored him. Miss Corwin’s sen- 
tence had been pronounced : “Freedom into 
death in six months, if you take great care.” 
Jerusalem James, who was not much better off, 
understood and was kind. 

“Is it anywhere near dinner-time?” yawned 
Miss Corwin, turning her eyes lazily from face 
to face. No one took the trouble to answer a 
thing that time would obviously tell. Jerusa- 
lem James did look at his watch, but he forgot 
what he saw before he remembered to tell it. 
Besides, no one really cared. 


266 


CHAPTER XXIV 

Well, life is stronger than character. 

— Gorky. 

It was late in the afternoon of Christmas day 
and Anne and Victor had been for a long ride 
on their ponies. Danny cared for the ponies 
and Victor had taken them to the stable. She 
sat on the rail of the stoop fanning herself with 
her sombrero and waiting for him. She was so 
tired, somehow ; she closed her eyes and leaned 
her head back against the post. Victor stood the 
heat, even seemed to thrive on it, but it wrung 
the very life out of her. 

Christmas is a difficult day for the exile. 
When he closes his eyes he sees snow and a big 
open fireplace, and over his ears, aching with the 
silence, slip echoes that break his heart, echoes 
of sleigh-bells, of hilarity, of healthy enthusi- 
asm and friendliness in voices. 

In the dense summer-like heat the very sense 
of the holiday seems to evaporate, the prevailing 
267 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


indolence stares hilarity in the face, fun turns 
frantic and finally drops dead like a top that 
has spun its course ; the invalid is set to wonder- 
ing if he may live to see another Christmas : and 
all of this in the very heart of a desert that 
boasts of bearing on its dry breast everything 
that grows in that other desert that gave the 
world its Christ. Especially is the thorn-bush 
“pointed plain.” 

Anne was wretched and homesick, and of late 
the old dizzy attacks she had suffered from the 
summer before had come upon her again. She 
had thought then they were from overwork : now 
she did not know what to think. One gives up 
trying to think after a while in a land where 
the nights and days are long and alike, except 
in color. 

During the last slow weeks she had come to 
realize that, spiritually at least, she had sold 
herself into bondage. No one could say she 
had not served her master well : Victor was amaz- 
ingly better and very happy, and the nurse had 
long since gone back east. But how about her- 
self? Perhaps she did not matter: just the same 
the pain of starving hurt terribly and persist- 
268 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


ently. Imaginative, strong, electric, sensitive, 
industrious, impulsive, natural — she was all of 
these things; and such women do not die se- 
renely. The incongruous people about her, un- 
der the same roof, the roof that was called the 
“Sunny Days,” clung to one another, not be- 
cause of a mind in common, but because of a 
childish fear of the immense emptiness around 
and about them, — children doomed to death and 
afraid to die, saying so with every covert glance 
of their feverish eyes, — cowards of a kind so 
pitiful that they wrung her heart even as they 
discouraged her. She had come out stimulated 
by a belief that when she had become accustomed 
to her new surroundings she would be able to 
get to work with new purpose ; and, what a won- 
derful thought, she would be free from the pre- 
dilections of the editor-general! But she found 
her own enthusiasm a store of food that dwin- 
dled rapidly and was not replenished. Victor 
never spoke of her work now, seemed not to care 
whether she ever did anything or not. Health 
was his aim and he seemed to think of no other. 
She was pretty and bright and that was enough. 

The sun and glare had wilted her body but 

269 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


her mind would not rest; that was the worst of 
all — it throbbed and taunted her like a con- 
science. “Homesick? Homesick for what?” she 
asked herself bitterly, and the answer came in a 
glare of truth, a glare so much more luminous 
than even the tropical sun: “You are homesick 
for your birthright of freedom, for the breath 
and the voice of the great, toiling, quick city, 
for work; yes, even for the loneliness and the 
hard side of strife; you have been false to the 
best there is in you.” 

She knew all this, but what to do? The very 
thought set her brain and blood quivering. And 
always she must keep the dead weight to herself : 
it would break Victor’s heart if he dreamed of it. 
She had come out there to save his life, not to 
break his heart. She knew, too, that she was 
made of tough fiber and that she had much to 
endure ; she knew that she had hardly started on 
her way; but what a long, white, stupid, dust- 
choked road it was! It wound through her 
heart and crushed her. She saw herself in the 
end giving in to the depression and the deprav- 
ity, becoming a kind of beast of burden; or, 
worst horror of all, coming to accept the way 
270 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


of a woman-butterfly that lights on the shoul- 
der of a man, to be carried and pampered by 
a thing the butterflies call 4 ‘love”, so that 
the small feet may avoid the dust. She hated 
her own selfishness and her stubborn spirit ; 
she told herself she was acting like a wil- 
ful child that has chosen its food, then for a 
whim will not eat it. She tried to love Victor, 
tried sincerely, pitifully, but love is something 
like genius and does not come at the call of 
convenience. One thing alone was clear to her 
mind, one conviction in all the jumble: Victor 
must never know, not if it killed her; and she 
told herself with scorn that it would never kill 
her, that she was not fine enough for that. 

And night and day John Warren was lurking 
about her mind. If she could only know what 
the world was doing for him. Ruth knew noth- 
ing about him and Marr never spoke of him. 
She had watched his work in the magazines, keen 
to see but afraid to look. And a change there 
was, but a change that baffled her. There was 
a complete discarding of the “fog of lines” and 
the mannerisms — the mannerisms that she had 
scolded and scoffed at, but now missed with a 

m 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


sinking of the heart akin to the pain of that 
night under the dark tree when John, the boy, 
had seemed to die before her very face. As 
the months went by a new strength and direct- 
ness were taking the place of the dead manner- 
isms; John himself was lost to sight in the sin- 
cerity nearly brutal with which he portrayed 
the thing he had to do. Had Catherine helped 
him to this ? Catherine ? She told herself 
with a tightening of her heart that Catherine 
never could have led John to any truth about 
art. 

And again, what did it all mean for her ? 
Failure, failure; a dreary existence, a stupid 
waste; always rehearsing, all her life, on a hope, 
but never really living; always getting ready 
for to-morrow at the expense of to-day. It was 
wrong, wrong, wrong; and she was tied by a 
cord woven of duty and pity to face the wrong 
patiently though it strangled her 

If Victor would only be impatient, if he 
would only get angry with her! He was al- 
ways sweet and gentle ; life was level, equal to it- 
self and everything else. She wondered if in 
spite of her vows to silence she would not some 
272 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


day break them and shriek out. There were some 
new, delicate lines in her face, the lines of the 
dreamer whose life hurts, and they contradicted 
her youth oddly. In her riding-clothes, as she 
was dressed to-day, she looked as the girl looked 
in the old Art School days. The short, dust- 
colored skirt, the thin white shirt-waist, her hair 
braided and tied low on her neck with a stout 
black ribbon ; the tan leather gauntlets and 
boots, the Indian whip with its bright woven 
handle, all gave a touch of masquerade that was 
picturesque. She was tanned as tan could be; 
a clear tan it was that let the color glow 
through, turned the shadows in her hair to blue, 
and made her blue eyes look like bits of clear 
remote sky. One suffers long at twenty-two be- 
fore the suffering tells its story in aught but 
sympathetic ink or whispers. 

Victor came swinging across the street and 
up the steps two at a time, a very different 
young man from the Victor of a few months ago. 

“You know, Vic, you should not hurry like 
that.” She opened her eyes lazily and smiled. 

The place was deserted. It was getting on 
to dinner-time and Mrs. Gritz had broadly in- 
273 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


timated that she did wish folks would “dress 
up” for Christmas dinner. 

“I know, Nancy,” he laughed, “but I feel so 
well it is hard to remember.” The evening light 
fell about the girl in a glow like praise, a praise 
that sang in tune with the love in his heart. 
It stirred an irresistible impulse, an impulse too 
warm and quick to be reasoned, and, standing 
close to her, he put his hand under her chin and 
turned back her face and 

“Searched it, as men do a flower.” 

“Do you know, kid,” he laughed, — “that is what 
John used to call you, didn’t he? — do you know 
that you look scarcely a day older than when I 
first met you? The short skirt, and the tan the 
old sun has painted on your face, I suppose. 
But there is a something, after all, if one just 
knows you well enough to see — a kind of grown- 
upness, I suppose — I — Nancy! I beg your 
pardon, dear, I forgot myself!” He drew away 
from her as if she had struck him. There had 
been a flood of offended color over her face and 
a look in her eyes. He did not look at her again 
and his voice was low and hurt. “It is the first 
274 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


time I have offended, Nancy. You must be 
patient with me.” 

“I didn’t mind, Vic, dear,” she said, and her 
voice was so small in the big enveloping silence 
that it overwhelmed her with terror, drowned 
her, and drew her down, and the dizziness she 
had been fighting descended and blinded her. 
“Victor,” she gasped, her hands fluttering in the 
air before her, “I am faint!” 

She was white, deadly white through the tan. 
“Anne,” he cried, springing toward her, “you 
are ill!” He caught her hands and held them 
close. They were hot and feverish, and dry 
and trembling like the cottonwood leaves in the 
still air. 

“I don’t know,” she said faintly, “I used to 
feel like this last summer and I thought it was 
overwork, but,” she smiled, “it can’t be that, 
so I suppose it is the heat. I felt it once up in 
John’s studio ; it was the smoke rushing by the 
window that brought it on then. It is terrible, 
Vic, and it frightens me. Things go black, and 
whirl and dissolve. Ugh!” she shuddered, “it 
wouldn’t be so bad if I could stop thinking, but 
I seem to be back of myself looking on and 
275 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


powerless to help. I must think, please. Let’s 
go upstairs. I’ll rest for a while.” 

“I can’t forgive myself,” said Victor, con- 
tritely, as they moved slowly up the stairs. 

“But,” she insisted, “it wasn’t you at all. It 
has happened twice before lately.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

She shook her head and moved on faster. 
“I’ll be all right when I have rested a while. 
You must not worry, not tell any one. I’ll stay 
out of the heat for a day or two. You see I 
must not turn invalid and lose my identity. I’ll 
just close my door, Vic, and sleep for half an 
hour. No one need be any the wiser.” 

When her door was closed behind her she col- 
lapsed and every line was limp and weak. She 
flung herself down on her bed and shut her eyes ; 
it was no use. Her brain felt dry and burned, 
and her head would not fit the pillow. The mo- 
ment her eyes were closed the eternal question- 
ing and thinking began. During the last weeks 
as the restlessness had increased, she had taken 
refuge in her imagination. 

The nights at least had been all her own ; the 
long, blue, misty nights! Sitting by her open 
276 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


window or lying with the dark like a cool band- 
age on her hot eyes, she built an island of her 
own ; a flimsy thing it was, built of hope and no- 
tions and moonlight, but free as air; and her 
hungry spirit imaged a feast and contrived to 
live a while on the tonic of fancies. But as her 
body relaxed with the enervating fever of the 
heat and the contagious laziness possessed her 
blood, the fancies grew feverish, and where at 
first she had wilfully kept awake and courted her 
dreams, now the dreams turned on her, and made 
her a slave, and would not let her sleep. 

She got up and dragged herself wearily to 
the window and sat looking out on the feathery 
pepper trees and the shivering silver-lined cot- 
tonwoods. A green Christmas truly ! 

After a while the dizziness all passed and left 
her weak, but with a sense that it had been a 
dream, too. She dressed slowly, moving with 
caution, like one walking on the edge of a pit. 
She put on a dress of soft, creamy wool, with 
lines of brown hand-made lace running from the 
throat to the hem, and a belt and collar of soft, 
satiny, bluish stuff that repeated the blue of her 
eyes. Her eyes were strangely clear — the bright, 

m 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


washed clearness that follows one storm to make 
way for another. Lastly she clasped about her 
throat a string of tiny pearls that Marr had 
sent her for Christmas, pearls with an exquisite 
little diamond clasp. Usually, if one was given 
to thinking of such things at all, she reminded 
one of the women of Manet, Whistler, or Alfred 
Stevens in her type and her clothes ; but to-night 
in her odd array of tones of white that harmo- 
nized marvelously, almost, it seemed, against 
their will, her black hair so beautifully done, se- 
vere in all its great smooth waves brushed till 
they seemed to be polished, and the tan skin with 
the contradictory color showing through, she 
was a Sargent; distinguished, frankly artful, 
poised, self-respecting, but first and last distin- 
guished. As much herself she was as Sargent 
would have permitted her to be while making 
her away in a portrait. It but needed the sig- 
nature. 

About the middle of dinner, Angelina, in a 
resplendent costume of red Scotch plaid, the 
kind of wiry stuff that is warranted to scratch 
at all the seams, appeared beaming in the din- 
ing-room doorway. She made a bow which was 
278 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


not parliamentary, but which was, nevertheless, 
hearty and good to see. 

“If you’re all a-settin’ in the parlor ’bout nine 
o’clock I reckon some ice-cream and cake ’ll come 
along a-beggin’ to be eat up.” 

“Hear, hear!” shouted every one, and Ange- 
lina disappeared as red as her plaid and as con- 
fused. 

From dinner-time to nine o’clock is a long 
chasm to the absent-minded exile on Christmas 
night, and with frantic energy they all took to 
whist or fantan. 

“If you didn’t trump my ace !” groaned Jeru- 
salem James, after a particularly long silence 
broken only by the clap-clap of the cards. He 
was playing whist with Anne. 

She glanced up half-bewildered and it oc- 
curred to him that she was pale and looking ill. 
“I’m so sorry,” she smiled. “I am afraid I was 
thinking.” 

“Is that the best you can do when you think ?” 
he persisted with gentle impudence. He thought 
that perhaps she was finding Christmas as hard 
as the rest of them. And no wonder ; they were 
not a cheerful lot. He glanced over the room 
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A GINGHAM ROSE 


with its stooped, narrow-chested, sallow, "belined 
crew of humanity. 

At that moment Angelina appeared with her 
heavy tray, a very vision of plenty and gen- 
erosity. 

“I say, Mrs. Gritz,” said Jerusalem James, 
wickedly, “I was star-gazing out of the window 
a moment ago and I thought I saw Danny Dixon 
and his pap going up the street.” 

Angelina put out her lower lip and blushed 
as red as her dress, then set the tray down 
on the table, cards and all. 

“Well, Jimmy J., if you jest set and watch 
long ’nough I reckon you’ll see ’em a-goin’ back 
down again.” She gave him a wide-eyed stare 
that made him wriggle and shrink, then as she 
marched out of the room, she gave Anne a dis- 
tinct wink. 

Anne followed her into the hall. “Mrs. 
Gritz, will you wish Danny and his pap a merry 
Christmas for me? You have all been so good 
to us I don’t know how we’ll ever thank you.” 

Angelina tweaked her inquisitive little nose 
and blinked hard. It was an easy matter to 
talk back to the world in general. They were 
280 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


to her mind just “kickers”, more or less. But a 
grateful boarder abashed her. 

“You jest bet I will,” she blurted out. “I was 
a-sayin’ to-night that I wished folks like you- 
’uns ’d come oftener. It’s generally the mean 
ones as gets sick an’ then they’s jest that much 
meaner.” Then Angelina Gritz began to laugh. 
Laughing with her was a matter of start, a won- 
derful crescendo, an end, then the echo. When 
her plump body was packed into its best dress 
the performance was a thing to be considered 
with wonder and humility. 

“Them two men is a-settin’ out on the back 
stoop this minute j est a-doin’ their best to freeze 
their insides. I give ’em each a big spoon an’ 
set the freezer between ’em an’ bid ’em each a 
fond good-by. They’s a-browsin’ like a pair 
of city-bred cows that is turned into an alfalfa 
patch for the first time, an’ you can’t, to save 
you, tell if Danny’s older than his pap er not. 
I reckon I’ll have to put the old man in the oven 
over night* to thaw him out onct he eats his way 
through the freezer.” The plaid expanses rose 
and fell with wave on wave of mirth, but sud- 
denly the chuckling congealed and an expression 
281 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


of comical horror spread over her round face, 
and, clapping a hand over her mouth, she gig- 
gled like a school-girl. 

“Oh, Mis’ Stetson, if I don’t beat all at 
makin’ breaks ! I’d a-said that before Jimmy J., 
jest as like as not, if it had a-come into my 
head !” She wiped her eyes on her apron. “He’d 
a-had it all over town by mornin’ that I couldn’t 
thaw him out no other way and had chucked him 
in the oven !” Her round shoulders shook again 
as a child sobs after the tears have stopped. 
“Ain’t I jest perfectly awful!” she shrieked in a 
high soprano, and giggling and shaking she 
waddled down the hall to Danny and his pap. 

Anne went back into the parlor. “Jimmy J.,” 
she smiled, “I am told that you are a gossip.” 

“Me?” said James, innocently. He was sit- 
ting in a corner by the pale Miss Corwin and 
was adroitly engaged in stealing a piece of cake 
from her coquetting plate. Miss Corwin’s eyes 
were larger and more pitifully frank every day, 
but J ames was strong beneath the fire of her gal- 
vanic glances, and so gentle. Suddenly he got 
to his feet and started toward Anne. Victor 
was there before him and caught her as she fell. 
She was in a dead faint. 

282 


CHAPTER XXV 


In the midday blaze of truth above, 

The unlidded eye of God awake, aware, 

You needs must pry about and trace the birth 
Of each stray beam of light may traverse night. 

To the night’s sun that’s Lucifer himself, 

Do so, at other time, in other place, 

Not now, not here! 

— Browning. 

Anne, tan-bleached and large-eyed, her hair 
in a braid over her shoulder, lay in a low chair 
in the side yard of the “Sunny Days.” It was 
not a bad sort of place to be, with the big blue 
shadow cast by the east wall of the house, the 
tall cottonwood trees with their multitude of 
silver-lined, shivering leaves that whisper inces- 
santly in the stillest air, the feathery pepper 
trees that droop and sag almost to the ground 
but contrive somehow to keep green and cool 
the year round, and the wonderfully heavy air 
beating and beating like a voluptuous heart that 
has no way of spending its flood-tide of life; 
every breath is still-born and sapped up in the 
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A GINGHAM ROSE 


dull sand and arid springtime, degeneracy it- 
self in the smiling extravagance and throbbing 
waste. It is good to lie still and be lazy when 
the whole world is droning and crooning to no 
purpose above spilling into one’s ears a bee-like 
lullaby. 

Anne had been very ill, despaired of for a 
time ; but tough of fiber and born to live, she took 
up the fight where the doctors left off. She was 
wandering slowly back to health, but so weak, so 
still of body and soul! The shadowy days and 
nights of delirium had served their purpose ; she 
had rested while her body and her brain fought 
it out ; all the turmoil and the problems had been 
laid in a torpor, and the painful memories had 
seemingly been written on the pale scroll of the 
incidental. Even her sense of humor wrought 
no more than an occasional smile. She wondered 
lazily if she would ever laugh again — or do any- 
thing else. 

Victor was, it seemed, getting better day by 
day. He sat near by in another low chair read- 
ing a big book and waving a palm-leaf fan, 
while every now and then he took a sip from a 
tall glass of lemonade, which, thanks to An- 
284 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


gelina Gritz, was like the “widow’s cruse.” He 
was guiltless of collar, and his white shirt and 
tan made him look young and strong again. In 
a country where climate and comfort are en- 
gaged in deadly strife Dame Conventionality 
forgets herself, of course, with an air of convic- 
tion, just as she always does the moment her 
own comfort is involved; and as the Arizona sun- 
shine would take the starch out of a nun’s bon- 
net, things like collars become rapidly extinct. 
As Anne watched Victor through her half-asleep 
eyes, she marveled that he had ever irritated her 
so. For the matter of that, what sense could 
there be in being irritated about anything? 
“You have been awfully good to me, Vic,” she 
smiled lazily. 

“I?” He closed his book and sat up, putting 
the glass down by the stone pitcher. Then he 
got out his pipe and, with skilful thumb-dabs, 
stuffed the brown little bowl with the pungent 
weed. 

“Don’t overdo the smoking.” She yawned as 
she spoke : she liked to see a man smoke. 

“I am really better, you think, Nancy, since 
the M. D. has let me have my pipe again?” 

285 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“It doesn’t need a pipe, Vic, to tell one that.” 

“Nancy,” he began carefully, with his eyes 
on the pipe, “you are so much better now that I 
dare speak about it. I must tell you that I have 
suffered nearly as much as you for that awk- 
wardness of mine the afternoon you were taken 
ill. I had no business to speak so to you; nor 
have I now, perhaps. It is going to take a long 
time to prove if I am mended for good. I don’t 
know what possessed me. I have sense enough to 
see that the less there is of that sort of thing the 
better for us both. I was so hungry for a word 
of hope that the starvation made a beast of me.” 

“But,” she smiled gently, “I haven’t thought 
of it since.” 

He looked at her in astonishment. Her eyes 
were sleepy but frank. Could it be that one 
might rave for days in delirium and hold no 
memory of it ? He sat back, enveloped in a cloud 
of smoke, to think about it. 

As for Anne, her mind moved slowly these 
days, but the words “hunger,” and “starvation,” 
and “hope” turned themselves over and over in 
her memory. So Victor had really felt all that, 
too, all the longing she had used to feel, some- 
286 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


thing like a thousand years ago, it seemed, for 
John. She smiled at the freak of irony, but she 
could not resent it; the fight had gone out of 
her. 

“We are fi one and one, with a shadowy 
third,’ ” she said to herself slowly. “I am sorry, 
Vic, that it has worried you. I had nearly for- 
gotten, and certainly I do not mind. I suppose 
we must both learn to be patient.” 

“Has any one seen my fur-lined overcoat?” 
and at the corner of the house, pretending a 
chill and making a great to-do with the shiver- 
ing, stood Jerusalem James. Great and gaunt, 
failing day by day, doomed and aware of it, 
but grit to the bone and bound to go down with 
a laugh, he was a better hero than often gets a 
monument. “Smoking again, Stetson?” he 
asked curiously, and shambled over to the ham- 
mock, sitting with his long legs dangling 
astride. 

“Why, yes, my pipe,” said Victor, and 
though his hand shook, he laughed at himself. 
“I am rather a baby to feel it so, but the doctor 
said I might smoke a little, and I can’t help 
hoping it is a milestone back to life.” 

287 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“I congratulate you,” sighed James, sadly. 
Doggedly he took out a package of cigarettes 
and, lighting up, sent a blue cloud of smoke 
about his head. 

Anne looked at him puzzled. “Why don’t 
you get a pipe, Jimmy J? I am nearly sure 
those things are bad for you.” 

For once in a way Jerusalem James was seri- 
ous. “You see, there are milestones, Mrs. Stet- 
son, whether you are climbing up hill or tum- 
bling down. I smoke now because it doesn’t mat- 
ter what I do. ‘A short life and a merry one,’ you 
know, especially as being stupid won’t lengthen 
the time. I’ve been trying all afternoon to make 
up my mind what to do with the time there is 
left. My old mother is coming out, so there is 
no need of taking a long, tiresome journey. I’ll 
take it comfortably enough a little later, you 
know. I sent for mother to come out, because I 
have an absurd horror of being put under this 
sand-pile. It’s too heavy for comfort. The 
idea has kept me awake nights, and that’s fool- 
ish. But they chuck you under in less than 
twelve hours unless some one with the right sits 
on the box and keeps ’em off. Anyhow, I guess 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


the mother would rather know. I’ve two months 
at the outside. That’s why I am smoking.” 

Victor and Anne were silent ; what was there to 
say? Victor had been walking consciously on 
the same brink, and so had she, for the matter of 
that, and they both understood, and Jimmy 
knew that they did. The two men smoked on, 
each silently noting the number on his milestone ; 
one, he hoped, pointing on to the long way of 
life; the other, he knew, toward death. 

“Hello there, Danny,” sang out Jerusalem 
James, then bent double with the terrible 
hacking cough that seemed never to rise above a 
whisper. He leaned back in the hammock and 
let the cigarette drop out of his fingers, and 
Danny went up and stepped on the burning end 
with a queer look at the tall, shaken fellow. 
Then he handed Anne two or three letters and 
grinned, with a glance about. 

“Mis’ Gritz is a-breakin’ me in as chore-boy 
by a-testin’ my muscle by a-havin’ me carry up 
Mis’ Stetson’s letters. Anybody ’d think you 
was I don’t know what, from the number of let- 
ters you get.” Then his face sobered. “How 
are you a-feelin’ to-day, Mis’ Stetson?” 

289 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Thank you, Danny, nearly as good as new.” 
She smiled in a way that always put Danny to 
shifting his hat from hand to hand, till in des- 
peration he would put it back on his head and 
his hands in his pockets. Danny’s adoration 
was a current joke. “Get yourself a chair and 
come talk with us. We don’t know what is 
going on in the world and you surely do.” 

Danny brought a chair and sat astride it 
where he could watch Anne and if necessary look 
at the others. He ran his thumb nervously up 
and down his ornate “braces,” then slyly exam- 
ined the row of closed shutters above their heads, 
while a look of real concern spread over his face. 
“Pap an’ Mis’ Gritz is really a-goin’ to get 
spliced,” he said mournfully. 

“But Danny,” said Anne, “that is all right. 
Mrs. Gritz is a mighty nice woman.” 

“Um-m-m-m,” ruminated Danny, while he 
scratched his red head and carefully adjusted 
his tattered straw hat. “I thought he was jest 
a-foolin’.” 

“Poor Mrs. Farrar !” chuckled Jerusalem 
James, wickedly. 

Danny gurgled and slapped his knee. Again 

290 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


he scanned the window-blinds. “I went around 
there of an errand soon’s I could find one. 
’Twas some trouble a-findin’ one this time of 
year, but I worked it. I broke the news to her 
’bout like the Irishman to Pat’s wife when he 
had Pat in the coffee-sack. I was awful careful 
’bout her feelin’s. Women’s so easy hurt,” he 
blinked at Anne. “An’ if she ain’t lit out bag 
an’ baggage for Tombstone! Didn’t even have 
the manners to hire me to drive her to the deepo. 
Her daughter Jenny runs the Morgue restaurant 
and saloon up there.” 

“Sounds cheerful,” smiled Anne. 

“It’s a hell of a place,” said Danny, lacon- 
ically. 

“Danny!” said Jerusalem James, solemnly, 
“I am amazed to hear you swear before ladies !” 

“Ain’t nothin’ to do but swear ’bout some 
things,” said Danny, with a grin at Anne. After 
a while he turned his eyes to Victor. “Seems ’s 
if all men gets married,” he remarked. 

“Of course,” said Victor, with superiority. 

Danny laughed. “Seems ’s if a fellow gets 
tired of even watchin’ clouds after a while, spe- 
cially when there ain’t no clouds to watch, darn 
291 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


’em! But,” he sat up straight and looked into 
the shimmering sky, “we’ll be a-havin’ clouds 
one of these days now that’ll wake you up. 
Never see a sand-storm, I guess?” 

“No, Danny,” Anne answered, “and from 
what I hear I’m not in a hurry to.” 

“That’s right,” he said. “They’re what you 
might call busy clouds for sure. None of your 
little frizzly, woolly, mother’s-darlin’, do-nothin’ 
clouds that ain’t got an idea of bustle above 
a-settin’ down on the sky. They’re the real 
thing. You’ll see. I’ve seen ’em so thick you’d 
think you was a-dyin’.” 

“Why, Danny Dixon, ain’t you ’shamed yer- 
self, a-settin’ here a-scarin’ Mis’ Stetson out of 
her wits! Where’s my lump-sugar I sent you 
up street fer?” Angelina stood at the corner, a 
substantial contradiction of the reported debili- 
tating effect of heat and activity. 

“Sugar?” said Danny, wide-eyed. “Shouldn’t 
think you’d haf to buy no lump-sugar!” 

“Now, go long, Danny,” and Angelina 
blushed furiously. “You bring that back double 
quick from the grocery or I’ll speak to yer pap.” 


292 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


She disappeared around the corner, fanning her- 
self with her apron. 

“Easy,” commented Danny, and started with 
a great sigh for the grocery. 

“Angelina is one good woman,” said Jerusa- 
lem James. “She has done her best to mother 
me.” 

All at once Anne sat up, white and tense. 
“Where — is Miss Corwin?” she asked low. In 
her apathy she had not missed her before. 

For a while no one answered, and Anne sank 
back in her chair. 

“Angelina was mighty good to her, too,” said 
Jerusalem James. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


Make your failure tragical by courage, it will 


not differ from success. 


— Thoreau. 


“Oh, Vic, come in here a moment, will you?” 

“Hotter than blazes, isn’t it ?” 

“Is it?” 

Victor appeared in the doorway between their 
two rooms. He was collarless, his sleeves were 
rolled back to his elbows, and his head was lost 
in a cloud of pipe-smoke. “You are an exasper- 
ating youngster, Nancy. You always look 
cool.” 

“Do I?” she murmured vaguely. She was 
sitting on the floor in the midst of a very flood 
of old letters and papers. By her side was a 
pasteboard box, the bulging, sagging green 
sides of which bore witness to long service. She 
had tied her two braids in a loose loop about her 
neck to get them out of the dust. Just before 
her in the center of a cleared space was a large 
294 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


sealed and tied package done up with manila 
paper. She sat gazing at it as if fascinated. 

“What have you caught, O Chinese Idol?” 
laughed Victor, making a cautious approach in 
a wide circle. “Will it bite?” 

“That is just what I want to know,” she 
sighed. All at once she wheeled about and sat 
with her back to the package. “Now, Vic, you 
cut the string and break the seals and open the 
thing. Right on top there will be a little printed 
slip. It is nearly certain to be yellow: they 
always use that color because it is especially an- 
noying. Don’t tell me a word of what it says, 
but roll it into a wad and, and — ” 

“Put it in my pipe and smoke it?” he sug- 
gested. He was more or less in the dark about 
the reasons for all this ceremony, but it did not 
require much experience to guess what manner 
of “bite” such a package might be capable of. 
Ever since her illness Anne had been wrapped 
about with a kind of apathy, and he welcomed 
the sight of the letters and papers as a sign of 
returning interest in her work. He glanced at 
her and smiled to himself as he cut the string. 
She was sitting as if about to be decapitated, 
295 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


with her head down and her arms clasped about 
her knees. 

“Why, Nancy, it isn’t a slip at all, and it isn’t 
yellow. Just listen to this, if you please : 

“ ‘Dear Miss Preston : 

“ ‘The inclosed story is, in conception and 
construction, by far the best thing of yours we 
have seen, but it is uneven in execution. We feel 
confident that in tone and style it is not up to the 
high standard of work you have set for yourself. 
We have ventured to mark some pages and pas- 
sages, hoping that you will consider them from 
our point of view and bring us the story again. 
It is more than possible we shall be able to bring 
it out with our fall fiction if you can improve it 
along the lines we suggest. Hoping — ’ ” 

“Vic !” she gasped, wheeling about again. 
“Don’t read another word : I can’t stand it ! This 
is what comes of being born a woman without 
common sense enough to pin her faith to dish- 
washing for a living! There is not a man at 
large who would have been goose enough to put 
a manuscript away without looking to see what 
the editor had to say. It takes a woman more 
than one natural lifetime to grow up; it does, 
296 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


indeed. Why, do you know, Vic, I was nearly 
out of ready money when that thing came back ? 
I might have gone under easily enough with that 
chance right in my hands. I am so ashamed of 
myself. It was so childish. Ruth and I buried 
it in the box just as it was, and Ruth cried, 
and I asked her to sing a dirge, and I laughed, 
though I was crying inside. I had had so many 
things back, and it just seemed to me I could not 
stand the sight of another editor’s regrets.” She 
got to her feet with no trace of the whimsicality 
that had moved her to call Victor to break the 
seals and open the package for her. It was one 
of her moments of real growth. She walked over 
by the window and stood looking out on the still, 
sun-soaked tree-tops. 

“Would you have gone under, Nancy, with- 
out one word to me ?” 

She turned about and looked at him helplessly. 
“I suppose I should have, Vic. I always was a 
mule,” she sighed. “And there is no use lying 
about it, is there?” 

“Not a bit,” he answered quietly. “I like you 
for it.” He stood looking out at the trees over 
her head a while. “Did you have a very bad 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


time getting the work going, girlie?” he asked 
gently. 

“Yes,” she smiled, “but a very good time, too, 
Vic.” She looked up at him through her glisten- 
ing eyes and something shone over her face — the 
stirring of enthusiasm, perhaps, an enthusiasm 
that had had a long sleep, but was being thrilled 
into life again. 

“I am going out for a ride before supper, 
Nancy. I need some exercise badly. I am lazy 
beyond apology these days. Read over your 
story while I am gone and see if it is not better 
than you thought.” Before she was able to an- 
swer he had gone into his room, snatched up his 
hat, and with a cheery “good-by” was gone. 

She understood his sympathy and tact, and, 
pulling a chair up close to the open window, she 
plunged into her book. “Oh,” she groaned now 
and then as she came upon a marked passage, 
“how conceited I was to try such a thing at all ! 
Why couldn’t I have seen that for myself?” Her 
blue eyes gazed into the tree-tops a while, then 
grew bright with the old flame of power. 

“But I can do it now,” she whispered low to 
herself ; “I know I can !” It was as if the secret 
298 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


was too precious to confide even to the silence, 
the silence that had never found a voice to speak, 
even if it had something to tell. She put back 
her head and closed her eyes and clasped her 
hands with idle tenderness on the papers in her 
lap. 

“I suppose,” she smiled, “one outgrows his 
stories just as he outgrows his clothes. If one 
could just get rid of them as completely!” She 
felt an overwhelming horror of print and wished 
there was some less glaring fate for one’s blun- 
ders. Suddenly her eyes opened wide, and, 
clasping the manuscript, she got to her feet. 
What had happened? People were running over 
the house slamming windows and doors. What 
a strange, terrible chill in the air — a chill that 
cut into the heat, but did not subdue it. And 
Victor: where was he? She glanced out of the 
window; the trees were shuddering as if in fear 
of something they could not run away from, and 
a faint pinkish film was veiling the light of day. 

Some one rapped furiously on the door. 
“Sand!” shouted Angelina Gritz from the hall, 
as she hurried on. “Shut your windows, quick!” 


299 


CHAPTER XXVII 


The wind bloweth where it listeth. 

— St. John. 

Victor had gone over at once to get his pony. 
As he stepped into the big brown barn he stood 
still a moment, with his sombrero in his hand, 
getting his eyes accustomed to the dimness. 
“Hello, Dixon,” he called, as Danny rose and 
stretched his long arms in a far corner. “Let 
me have my pony.” 

“Want him very bad?” groaned Danny, his 
laziness frankly too much for him. “Nice cool 
day to pick out for a ride, I must say!” He 
shambled across the barn floor and disappeared in 
a stall, and after much comical sighing and com- 
plaining he led the pony forth saddled. He 
walked to the door holding on to the bridle and 
let his sleepy green eyes "travel around the hori- 
zon. “Goin’ far?” he asked curiously. 

“Just far enough to find an appetite for sup- 
per.” 


300 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Which way?” Danny persisted, holding fast 
to the bridle. 

Victor laughed and climbed into the saddle. 
“What is the matter with you, Danny? Are the 
Apaches on the warpath, and do you think 
they’ll kidnap me?” 

“I was jest a-thinkin’ it might blow up a 
mite,” and again Danny’s freckles seemed to 
shift and dance in the wrinkles that circled away 
from his yawn. “If I was you I’d jest stick to 
the highway so you can drop in somewhere if it 
gets thick. Sand ain’t extra good for breathin’, 
you know.” 

“Why, Danny, you croaker, there isn’t a 
speck of cloud in the whole sky !” 

“Is that so?” drawled Danny, with a grin, 
while he crossed his arms tight and seemed to lean 
on himself from his head to his toes. “Well, 
I s’pose even a fool croaker hits it now an’ then.” 

“All right,” said Victor, over his shoulder, 
“I’ll keep my eyes open.” 

“You’ll shut ’em tight ’nough if it blows up 
sand,” he yelled after the retreating figure, then, 
with an apathetic glance about, he sank down in 
his tracks to finish the interrupted nap. 

301 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


The next thing Daniel Dixon knew was that 
some one, no other than his pap, was shaking him 
by the shoulders and shouting in his ear in a stri- 
dent, irritating key: “Oh, no, my Dan’ el ain’t 
’fraid of work, he ain’t; he’ll lie right down ’side 
of it an’ go to sleep ! Ain’t nothin’ ’fraid ’bout 
Dan’ el! You dad-blasted, lazy, red-headed 
id j it, limber up here an’ shut the barn doors ! 
There’s a sand-storm a-blowin’ the roof off yer 
head, do you hear?” 

Danny got awake at once and was upon his 
feet with amazing alacrity, but not because he 
minded his pap; he was thoroughly at home 
with the storm-center and knew the meaning of 
a “bluff.” He made a dive for the stalls and 
with lightning skill had backed his ponies into 
place and was harnessing them to the “outfit” 
before his astonished pap could get his breath. 
“Thanks fer a-wakin’ me up,” said Danny, over 
his shoulder. 

“What in thunder you a-doin’ now?” gasped 
the old man, wiping his perspiring brow. “Is 
that yer idea of a-shuttin’ a barn door?” 

“Nop, ’tain’t,” roared Danny, above the wind. 
“An’ don’t you go a-shuttin’ it, either, before I 
302 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


get outside. I’ve got a passenger a-waitin’ fer 
me up the highway. You always ’re a-tellin’ me 
to keep my eyes open fer a job!” 

“Goin’ to take yer cab out in the sand and 
then ’spect me to do the dustin’, more ’n likely,” 
and Danny’s pap fanned himself excitedly with 
his hat. The heat was terrible in the close air. 

“More ’n likely,” yelled Danny, as he pulled a 
strap tight and began raising the back of the 
cab. 

“Yer a born fool,” grunted his pap. The 
dust blew in clouds through every crack in the 
board walls and the trees beat against the roof. 

“Guess I come by it natural ’nough,” grinned 
Danny, as he finished fastening the curtains 
down tightly. Danny and his pap bluffed and 
played like an old bear and a cub ; they were the 
best of friends and had for each other a whole- 
some appreciation. 

“Where you a-goin’, Dan’el?” asked the old 
man, in a conciliatory tone. 

“Seefns ’s if a fellow never knows jest where 
he is a-goin’ till he’s been there an’ back to the 
barn again,” grunted Danny, as he pulled his 
hat about his ears. 

303 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Storm seems to be a-lettin’ up some,” said 
Danny’s pap, going to the door and looking out. 
It was as dark as the last of twilight. “You’ll 
’bout ruin yer cab.” 

Danny jumped up and took the reins and 
ducked his head as they jolted through the door. 
“So long, pap,” he yelled. “Shut the barn 
door !” He grinned over his shoulder and his pap 
grinned back. Then Danny pulled his hat over 
his eyes and sent the ponies galloping, with their 
ears back, into the very face of the flying sand. 


804 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


Between the vanishing of the drop and the 
vanishing of the man, what difference? A dif- 
ference of words. But ask yourself what be- 
comes of the dewdrop? 

— Lafcadio Hearn. 

The steady tap-tap of the beast’s small, pre- 
cise hoofs seemed the only sound in the whole 
sleepy world except the quaint, ceaseless hum of 
summer-time, which one feels rather than hears. 
Victor and the pony kept close on the blue in the 
pattern of pink and blue which the conspiring 
shapes and the sun spread on the dusty high- 
way till it stretched away before them like the 
unfolded scroll of some Japanese picture-book. 

The young man’s heart was beating high for 
the moment : at last he had seen Anne come out 
of her torpor, had left her with something like 
the old love of work shining on her face and her 
story in her hands ; had left her that she might 
the more easily find herself. He had never 
pushed his own work very far, but he knew 
305 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


enough to leave her to do the choosing at her 
crossways. The moods of healthy women and 
of sick men are changeable as the springtime 
breezes; the flames need so much fanning. 

He looked about him curiously as he rode 
along the deserted streets, by the houses with 
their tightly closed shutters. Even the irrigat- 
ing canals were demoralized to sluggishness by 
the perpetual reflecting of laziness. The whole 
town was two inches in dust and none the wiser ! 
Here and there between houses, or down the side 
streets, he caught glimpses of the desert or a 
plucky square patch of alfalfa, and always the 
sky-line of violet mountains that looked thin as 
glass against the blue sky. He was in a basin, a 
basin of dry, sun-glazed ware that caught the 
light with a kind of persistent opalescent idiocy, 
a basin in which a few men crawled, “not so 
much by the grace of God as by the oversight of 
the devil.” 

But to-day the place was pregnant, and in the 
strangely heavy heat Victor felt the full throb 
of life; his own blood flowed in tune, and the 
pony with his brown, satiny coat moved along 
easily. There was pure beauty, an animal at- 
306 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


oneness of things around and about. The air 
was dry wine and his mood held the cup. For 
an uncounted space of time he caught and held 
a clean, clear sense of the possibilities of the vast 
unworked desert about him ; he thrilled to realize 
man’s part in the big play, his power of mind to 
force and drive arid blanks to fruition. He 
dreamed a rich future and saw a vision of the 
dream fulfilled in the quivering ready air. 

Like butterflies, fancies struck across the sun- 
spots; he sensed the kinship between sun-spot 
and gold-fruit; between moonlight and white- 
bloom. Fancies made of truth flickered about 
him fearlessly, familiarly, and for once in a way 
it was given him to live beyond bonds. The 
water in the canals moved with the pony, the 
stray leaves that whirled and careened on their 
light way turned boats for more fancies. He 
pulled off his hat and worshiped. He did not 
laugh ; he did not think : living in the pure does 
not burden itself with expression; it simply is. 

Then an idea played the mischief with his 
peace and sent the mood a-flying, and he turned 
man, man so full of wise judgments and grave, 
responsible comparisons ! He wondered that 

307 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


other men were not out having a look at the play 
of life. He felt a duty commanding him to root 
them out. Now and then a man, never a woman, 
shot like an arrow across the way from one 
awning to another, aimed straight for shelter. 
Had any asked him why he did not stop he would 
have answered, “Nothing ever happens in the 
summer-time. Why should a man ruin his eyes in 
the glare?” Nothing ever happens! And this 
in a land of sunrise and twilight, of moonrise 
and dawn ! Blind, dead-alive puppets, puppets 
of a lazy ingrowing gaze, babbling wisely that 
“nothing ever happens in the summer-time!” 

And so his spirits fell even as they had risen. 
Now that he was caught by the fiend of moraliz- 
ing again, the moment of high living looked like 
a fine kind of torture, a tantalizing glimpse just 
to let him know what health might mean. 

During Anne’s illness and delirium she had 
brought him face to face with some bitter, un- 
disguised truths. For long hours he had sat by 
her bed listening while she babbled with awful 
frankness, a frankness that was pathetic enough 
in its stinging, unsparing cruelty from a girl 
whose life had been gentle and tactful toward 
308 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


every thing that breathes. Until then he had 
had no real idea of the self-struggle she was 
enduring, and as he listened he pitied her more 
than he pitied himself. On the heels of the de- 
lirium followed a silent period of inertia, while 
life ebbed low and the brain seemed dead. She 
came back to life with a new, fresh- washed child- 
likeness in her eyes ; she seemed tainted by not 
so much as a memory of the old struggle; she 
showed him a friendship that was frank if apa- 
thetic, sincere if shallow. She was broken to her 
harness. Poor girl! One takes lightly enough 
the antics, the restlessness, the rebellion of the 
first alarming touches of harness on a spirited 
colt, but when the day comes and the spirit 
breaks it is quite another business. Be the 
trainer never so hard-shelled, he will rub the 
quivering nose and whisper into the stubborn 
ears the astonishing news that he has been 
through the very same thing himself ; and if no 
one is looking a lump of sugar will more than 
likely rise to the light of consolation. 

Victor would gladly have given up anything, 
even the girl’s friendship, for a return of her 
old stormy, impulsive whimsicalities. He had 

309 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


come to understand that she could never love 
him, though she died of the trying. He had 
come to see that for him, as his God had chosen 
to make him, she, as her God had chosen to make 
her, could give him no more than friendship, and 
that even this would fly away frightened, unless 
he learned to accept it with no trace of a hope of 
something more to come. 

His spirit went down and down once the 
drooping began. For he had a secret, and some 
day when the time should come he must tell it to 
Anne. The secret held her release. It would 
not be so long before she would be going back 
to the life she was born to. Well, he at least 
might send her better equipped to make her 
fight than before; that was his portion. The 
doctors said he was better, but what, after all, 
did they really know of him? There was no 
reason why they should lie to him; he was no 
more of a coward than the others ; he understood 
that they believed he was better, but he knew 
that they were wrong. They could not know, 
he took good care of that, how night and day a 
dreary conviction was tugging at his heart- 
strings, a dull-eyed dread was sulking in his 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


heart and putting its cool finger to the quick, 
while he sat laughing with Anne and James, his 
two closest friends ! 

After all, even friendship in the big moments 
is just the king of ironies. James envied him 
that he was getting well, and Anne was so glad 
for him ! And all the time his eyes rested on the 
inevitable fog that blurred his path. Sometimes 
on the stillest, warmest, gayest, sunniest days a 
wisp of the gray coolness wafted and stirred 
across his senses, whispering that fighting was 
no use. Life is a good thing and hard to give 
up ; death is cold and God knows what else. 

And Anne, the girl, warm-hearted and true 
as steel; Anne, for whom he hoped so much, 
whom he wanted to stay by and help, it broke 
his heart to leave her. The individual want and 
hope, the selfish longing of the man dies with an 
agony terrible, and it brought the cold drops to 
his forehead. He was afraid. He knew that in 
his eyes was coming the same look of self-hunted 
terror that he had furtively watched in the eyes 
of James and the Corwin girl. He shivered and 
looked up about him and for a moment wondered 
if he had already died. The pony had come to 
311 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


a standstill and was tossing his head and sniffing 
the air. All the sun-soaked warm world had 
changed and the sun itself had gone out. Dan- 
ny’s storm was coming ! 

Beyond the row of cottonwood trees and the 
canal the desert stretched away like a floor, with 
its repellent carpet of dry sage-brush and cactus 
and its sense of dust-colored crawling things. 
Over the mountains to the north and the west 
hung a great pinkish-brown curtain of dust and 
sand. The sun was nearing the end of the day’s 
entertainment and sending shaft on shaft of 
splendid color through the tawny veil. The cur- 
tain rose steadily, converting the sky into an 
inverted desert and, bit by bit, taking up the 
desert floor. The cold wind came marching like 
a herald of woe in advance of the storm, putting 
everything in its way to shivering and shud- 
dering. 

Victor bent low over the pony, turned him, 
and let him go as he would, but it was no use; 
they had come farther than he thought, and 
long before they reached the edge of town the 
storm swooped down and the day was turned into 
night. The air was drowned out in sand and 
312 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


dust, and the pony stopped and stood quiver- 
ing. The violent riding and the suffocating air 
had begun their work, and the cough tore and 
rasped at the walls of Victor’s lungs. He dis- 
mounted and groped his way to a tree and tied 
the bridle. He dared not think and he could not 
breathe. He stood close to the pony and put his 
face against the brown neck, and making a hol- 
low of his hands, tried to keep the sand out for 
one good breath, but the clogged air would not 
be beaten back and he felt the terrible giving- 
way. In despair he sank down with his head on 
his arms and clutched at the dust for strength. 
Then the warm blood began its pitiless flowing. 

So Danny found him, faint from suffocation 
and the loss of blood. With the help of the 
boy’s strong arms he was able to crawl to shelter 
in the cab. Danny soaked a handkerchief in the 
canal and bathed his face with the gentleness of 
a girl. 

Victor smiled his thanks. “Better get to the 
doctor’s as soon as you can, Danny,” he whis- 
pered with the huskiness that comes after the 
hemorrhage. 

“You bet,” said Danny, bravely, and with a 

313 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


quick look to see that the pony was securely tied, 
he jumped to his seat and drove as fast as he 
dared. Jolting would start the blood again. 
The moment he saw Victor safe in the doctor’s 
hands he was off with the cab to find Anne. 

Angelina Gritz met him at the curb. She was 
walking up and down watching for Victor. She 
had left Anne sitting by Jerusalem James while 
she came down to watch. Danny told his story 
briefly and with no more self-glory than logic 
demanded. 

Angelina’s blue eyes filled and the big tears 
rolled down her round cheeks. She put a plump 
hand on Danny’s big freckled one. 

“ 1 must say, Danny,” she gulped, “you’ve 
got some sense back of yer foolish face, after 
all!” Her voice broke in her sympathy for 
Anne and this first moment of real motherliness 
for Danny. She wiped her eyes on her apron. 
“An’ Jimmy’s awful bad, too, an’ won’t let Mis’ 
Stetson out of his sight. She sent me down here 
to watch for him. How can I tell her?” 

“Gosh,” sighed Danny. “Go ’long. I’ll wait.” 
He blinked into space, and wiped the dust off his 
face, then set his mouth tight. 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Anne did not say a word when Angelina told 
her, but went into her room and got her hat and 
went straight down to the cab. She put her 
hand on Danny’s sleeve in mute appeal. Danny 
drove like the wind. She found Victor better, but 
too weak to do more than look at her. She sank 
down by him and put her arm under his head. 

Danny bolted. He was conscious of nothing 
in particular till he found himself riding the 
pony back to the stable. He looked about him 
curiously. The world was clearer than before the 
storm and as tranquil in the twilight as if no 
wind had ever passed that way. The air was 
rarely sweet and pure and seemed hypocritically 
to deny any memory of the havoc and life-tak- 
ing of an hour before. 

“Somethin’ wrong ’bout the whole dad-blasted 
game,” grumbled Danny. 


315 


CHAPTER XXIX 


As for man, his days are as grass : as a flower 
of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind 
passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place 
thereof shall know it no more. 

— The Psalms. 

“But, Vic, you are better, I am sure. The hem- 
orrhage was pretty bad, but no one would dream 
you had had it now. It need not happen again 
if you are careful.” 

“Do you think so, Nancy? That is just be- 
cause you are under the glamour of the sunshine 
and because it is your woman’s way to believe 
what you hope. Of course, I’d have gone long 
before this if we hadn’t come out here. The 
place has served a good turn. And I have you 
with me: that makes everything worth while. I 
am not afraid or unhappy about it any more. 
That is where the advantage of being ill a long 
time comes in : you become reconciled. And 
lately, since you have seemed your old self again, 
I have been very well contented. I think, per- 
haps, Nancy, it has all been sweeter and finer as 
316 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


it is than if you had been to me just what the 
most of the woman-world is to most of the man- 
world. Perhaps we have come out somewhere, 
after all. We are not afraid of each other any 
more, are we? And I know I love you better 
than when we came away, and that is proof that 
I am better, for I loved you as much as I could 
when we came. But lately I have felt satisfied ; 
all the old restlessness is gone. And that is a 
sure sign, Nancy, for life is ready to stop when 
a man is satisfied.” 

The girl was silent. Her heart and the mo- 
ment were full, there was no room left for words. 
To argue with a man who has told you tran- 
quilly that he is about to die is sacrilege. After 
an interval that neither of them thought to 
measure, she asked in a voice low enough to keep 
out the quivering: “What do you want to do, 
Victor? Would you rather stay here a while 
longer and see if you don’t feel better, after 
all?” 

“Let’s go away, Nancy. Would it upset the 
work ?” 

“Where would you rather go?” she asked 
gently. 


srr 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“But, dear, answer me. The book ?” 

“Victor,” she begged, “what is a book, or a 
thousand books? Nothing matters but that you 
are as well and as happy as possible. Besides,” 
she struggled bravely to find a smile, “it is a 
poor sort of book that can’t stand a change of 
climate. It does not matter. I’ll put it away 
and we’ll go for the rest of the hot months and 
then come back to work for the winter.” 

“We’ll not be coming back, Nancy.” 

“Don’t !” she whispered. 

“But, Anne, I don’t want you to feel like that 
about it. I have only one horror in the world 
now and that is of dying here. Everything is 
dead here already and when I do go I want to 
go from the midst of life. Every one seems to 
feel so. Jimmy does, I know, for we have talked 
about it. But it seems to be Jimmy’s fate, and it 
is not mine. I need not stay and I won’t. It’s 
been terrible watching Jimmy go by inches, 
watching himself too, that is the worst of it. The 
place is a mockery, Anne. The sunshine glitters 
and promises like a baubled cynic. It just daw- 
dles over the inevitable, makes jokes in the face 
of the sacred and plays with a man’s breath cat- 
318 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


and-mouse-wise. It does not give one back his 
life, it just cheats death for a while with a com- 
promise. It’s childish and cowardly of me, but I 
can not stay here and see the last of Jimmy. 
Ridiculous, lovable Jerusalem James that he is! 
I can’t stand it. I think we are making it hard 
for him too. Why, Anne, the place is cruel 
with its flaunting waste of life in the very face 
of a starving man. The other day as I rode out 
in the country, the day of the storm, I had such 
a glimpse of brute health as I had never imag- 
ined. I saw and felt all through me what flood- 
tide life might mean ; for a while everything was 
as plain as day. I fairly reeked in hope ; I was 
strong and useful ; I understood and was willing 
to do my part in the big scheme of things ; I got 
into a kind of enthusiastic vision of what this 
country is bound to become and I felt all the 
thrill of the pioneer with a work to do. For once 
I stood on a level with my Maker and looked at 
Him face to face. But do you think it could 
last? By no means; it was to tantalize me, it 
was the cat and the mouse. That was the top 
of my climb, Nancy. I suppose an hour of the 
truth is enough to send a man on with, after all. 
319 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


And the cat and the mouse have so little to do 
with the big scheme of things, when all is said 
and done.” 

“Where would you like to go, Victor?” 

“Why, let’s go on a sort of jaunt, let’s take 
the game into our own hands and go in for a lit- 
tle of the cheating ourselves. It’s a wild notion, 
running away from the inevitable, isn’t it ? This 
will be a strange year for you, Nancy. It will 
seem to you like a dream one of these days. You 
have a long way to go, Anne : I know you have, 
because you have the spirit to make the fight. 
I’d like being around somewhere to watch you, 
but I have about served my purpose for you, just 
as this place here has served for me. I wish I 
might see the finish of the story, too, for some- 
how I have a feeling that it is going to have 
much to do with whatever is in store for you. 
You’ll make it, no matter what happens, you are 
such a sandy-hearted little baggage.” He put 
his hand over hers and smiled with a boyishness 
that broke her heart. Her eyes were wet, and he 
looked away and sent a cloud of pipe-smoke be- 
tween them. He and Jerusalem James were 
smoking for the same reason now. 

320 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


There was so strange a finality in all that he 
said that a mood of complete acceptance seemed 
to envelope her against her will. “Where shall 
we go?” she repeated half-consciously. 

“I have been looking things up,” he said 
briskly. “We are going to Santa Fe. It’s away 
up in the mountains, you know; I’ll take you 
that much farther with me.” He smiled and 
stroked her hand. “I found a man who had just 
been there the other day and he told me all about 
it. He wishes he had not come away. There is a 
big Catholic institution that seems to be a hotel 
if one is well and a hospital if one is ill. There 
is an old orchard in the court and he says the 
youngsters from the orphanage go through 
there in their communion dresses in the early 
morning. Sounds pretty, does it not? There is 
a big church and you can go into the chapel 
right from the house if you like. Next door to 
the place is an old garden that belonged once 
to some thrifty bishop. The place is deserted 
now and any one may go who likes. There are 
lakes and walks and benches arid a rickety little 
gate, and more trees, Anne. Think of apple 


321 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


trees after all this death. I want to be there 
this minute, don’t you ?” 

She smiled and put her other hand on his for 
answer. 

“There are Sisters, too, and they are good to 
you if you are ill. The man says they are mostly 
middle-aged, with ripe, jolly faces ; faces, he said, 
That had made up their minds.’ It must rest a 
fellow to look at that sort. Shall we go?” 

“Oh yes, we’ll go,” she sighed. 

“Do you suppose Marr could come out?” he 
asked. 

“I shall write him, of course,” she answered. 
“I know he will come.” 

“But, Nancy, I tell you one thing,” he sat up 
and looked into her eyes eagerly ; “you have got 
to help me away from here without saying good- 
by to Jimmy. We must go without his knowing 
it. He couldn’t stand it any more than I could. 
I don’t care how it looks, it has got to be done !” 

Anne rose and stood over him looking down 
on his face. They were in her room by the 
open window. Since his last sickness they had 
been drawn very close together and there was 
between them the grown-up acknowledgment of 
822 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


human-aloneness. With a sweep of tenderness 
that told the girl something new, she stooped and 
caught his face close against her breast and 
pressed her cheek against his forehead. “Vic- 
tor,” she whispered, and her low voice fluttered 
across his closed eyes — eyes that were closed to 
find the darkness that brings the better seeing. 


CHAPTER XXX 


The shadows come and go ; — the Shadow- ' 
Maker shapes for ever. 

— Lafcadio He abn. 

After dinner that same evening while Victor 
went in to talk with Jerusalem James, Anne 
walked over to the stable to find Danny. The 
summer dusk is long in Arizona and marvelously 
still. She found him sitting in an old wooden 
chair tipped back against the barn door where 
he could keep watch over the stable and at the 
same time get the benefit of the evening light 
without exertion. Danny’s was the art of com- 
promise. From the big open door by his side 
came the smell of fresh straw, the muffled thump 
of hoofs on the wooden floor and the peaceful 
munching of some gourmand over his supper of 
sweet alfalfa. Danny jumped out of his chair, 
and the whip he had been mending flew when the 
hem of Anne’s white dress got in the way of his 
eyes. He jerked off his hat and held it awk- 
wardly in his big hands so that it covered his 
324 * 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


mouth, where he always felt his embarrassment 
most, and his green eyes blinked at her unbeliev- 
ingly over the yellow straw brim. 

“Danny,” she smiled, “I have come to talk 
over something important with you. Are we 
quite alone?” 

“Yes’m,” said Danny, overcome and made 
meek by unexpected honors. “Pap’s a-drivin’ a 
party of tenderfoots out to the ostrich farm by 
moonlight an’ the land only knows when they’ll 
think they’ve had ’nough. Ain’t nothin’ round 
to hear but the — quadrupeds!” He waved his 
hat eloquently toward the barn where the twi- 
light caught a switching tail at the end of almost 
every stall. Big words always helped Danny to 
his ease. She took the chair he offered her, while 
he sat on the ground with his back against the 
barn. 

“Can you keep a secret, Danny?” she asked. 

“If ’tain’t worth tellin’,” grinned Danny. 
“Depends on whose ’tis.” 

“Would you keep one for me?” 

“Jest watch me,” and he hitched his back con- 
vincingly and sent his old hat spinning across 
the barn floor like a top. 

325 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Anne’s eyes followed the hat absently and 
rested on it when it stopped. “Danny,” she 
said at last, “we are going away.” 

“You’re a- what?” and Danny peered up into 
her face. He was puzzled. The Stetsons were 
not the sort of people who usually made a secret 
of their departure. He waited breathlessly for 
her to tell the rest, but while he waited he said 
to himself that if Stetson was the biggest fraud 
on earth and had busted banks or sent as many 
as a dozen deservin’ sinners where they belonged, 
it would take more’n horsepower to get anything 
that would hurt her out of him. Her next 
words were almost a disappointment; he longed 
to be tested. 

“Mr. Stetson is not so well, Danny. He is dis- 
couraged, and wants to get up to the mountains 
for a while.” She turned her eyes to his and let 
them tell him the dreary news she had not the 
heart to voice. 

“I’ve noticed he was a-lookin’ peekid,” said 
Danny. “It was that damn storm did it, — and 
me a-sleepin’ here when I ought to have been 
out a-lookin’ for him. I feel as if it was all my 
fault.” 


826 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“But, Danny, you know very well that if you 
hadn’t found him, he’d have died out there alone. 
He said you saved him. But he told me to-day, 
Danny, that he has always known he would never 
get well.” 

“It’s hell, ain’t it?” said Danny, simply. 

“I suppose it is,” answered Anne, seriously. 
“Will you help me about something, Danny?” 

“You bet I will,” he said, his face all wrinkled 
in his eagerness. 

“You know when people are sick they feel 
things so much, and he has an idea that he can’t 
stand it to say good-by to Jerusalem James. He 
wants — for Jimmy’s sake as well as his own, for 
Jimmy is so ill that anything might end him, 
you know — to get away without his knowing it. 
Do you see?” 

“That’s right,” said Danny, swallowing hard. 
“I’d like to get out of a-seein’ him myself. He’s 
so darned joky he ’bout upsets me. He’s got 
sand, I tell you.” 

“I knew you would understand,” Anne sighed. 
“Now Jimmy is in his room long before sundown, 
but it is a front room, you know, and we must be 
very careful. Is there a night train, Danny?” 
327 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Danny got up and went into the stable. In a 
moment he struck a match and lighted a lamp 
in the office. Anne watched him hunting over 
a lot of paper on an old table, his awkward 
shadow climbing up the board wall behind him. 
He brought out a time-table and looked up the 
trains for her. They could leave at nine in the 
evening. 

“It is just a question of days now with Jimmy, 
and since Mr. Stetson has made up his mind, he 
is nervous and anxious to be off. Mrs. Gritz 
says she will help me with the packing and I am 
sure we can be ready by to-morrow night. Will 
you have the cab there a little before nine ?” 

“You are a-goin’ fer good?” asked Danny, 
the mournful idea just occurring to him. 

“I wish that I knew,” she answered low. She 
rose and held out her hand. “There is no use 
trying to thank you, Danny. There isn’t any 
way.” 

Danny blushed mightily, but he took the hand 
with his best reverence. “It’s worth somethin’ 
a-meetin’ a woman who ain’t stuck up,” he said 
firmly. 

After she had gone, Danny stood against the 

328 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


barn-door watching till her white dress disap- 
peared around the corner. Then he found the 
whip, got his hat and put it on straight and went 
into the office. He sat by the table with the lamp 
at his elbow and mended the whip with great 
care, and his big shadow mocked and dogged him 
and told all the things Danny was trying to 
keep from himself, after the manner of men’s 
shadows. When his pap came home, he found 
the boy asleep with his head on his arms. 
“A-wastin’ good oil when you can’t find no more 
daylight, hey?” grumbled the man, watching 
him as he put up the horses. The tourists had 
tired the old man out and bored him exceedingly. 
“Dan’el,” he said, gently putting his hand on 
the boy’s shoulder, “did you think you was 
a-bed ?” 


329 


CHAPTER XXXI 


So, ye have wrought me 
Designs on the night of our knowledge, — yea, 
ye have taught me, 

So, 

That haply we know somewhat more than we know. 

— Sidney Lanier. 

Danny Dixon drove as quietly as he could, 
and the thick dust helped by muffling the hoof- 
beats, but the wicked silence seemed to revel and 
gloat over every little sound, seemed to catch it 
up and cherish it, to thrust or persuade it into 
every corner of the aching emptiness. In the 
late afternoon there had been a flurry of sand 
and the night was so clear it seemed raw. From 
the back stoop where Angelina went for a look 
about, she announced to the cook inside that the 
sky was “a-shinin’ like a new tin.” And so it 
was. The stars were polished till they fairly 
cried out, and they seemed so near, almost as if 
they might get in the way. Danny detested 
such a night: he said it made his freckles all 
330 


A GINGHAM ROSE 

hurt and show in the dark. It was like looking 
into a still pool of water full of unwavering 
shadows ; worse than that, because one seemed to 
be in the pool and no way out. In short, a fine 
night for death and hysterics. The “Sunny 
Days” loomed twice its size and the pepper trees 
in the front yard shone an unearthly green. The 
shades in Jerusalem James’ windows were drawn, 
but the crack at the edges showed bright and 
the rents in the cotton here and there spilled 
more light. Danny was just on time and he 
knew it and tried to settle with patience to wait. 
But he wriggled with suppressed excitement and 
at last put his straw hat under the seat. He felt 
irritated, and, though he called himself an old 
woman, he could not shake off the presentiment 
that something was going to happen. Then the 
other three conspirators came noiselessly around 
the house from the back door. Victor was pale, 
and looked neither to the right nor the left; 
Anne was tense, and plainly felt responsible and 
guilty; Angelina was carrying more than she 
could in the matter both of baggage and emotion, 
and in spite of Danny’s wide-eyed scorn and 
Anne’s mute appealing, she thickened the air 
331 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


with her tears and her whispered regrets and ad- 
monitions. “Shut up, can’t you?” whispered 
Danny, frantically, for he had seen a shadow on 
the window-shade upstairs. The two jumped in, 
and without waiting for orders he shook the 
reins and turned the cab with a jolt. A broad 
bar of clear light suddenly fell directly on the 
cab, and Jerusalem James, gaunt and eager, 
peered out. In the moment the eyes of the two 
sick men fixed on each other, and somewhere in 
the dark Fate laughed. Danny grabbed his 
whip and swung it wide, but the noise and lurch- 
ing could not drown the low human cry of 
giving up that came from the window. Anne 
got frantically to her knees and waved her hand- 
kerchief. She tried to call “good-by,” but her 
voice would not come. Victor sat huddled with 
his face in his hands and did not say a word. 
He was having a look at himself, naked and con- 
victed, a mite who had tried to escape a bit of 
pain that lay across his path! Fortunately the 
time before the train came in was full. Danny 
must be argued with to accept pay for the cab, 
and the tickets and the trunks had to be attended 
to. Then, somehow, the thing was over. Slowly 
332 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


and steadily the train drew out of the station 
and became a smaller and darker patch on the 
night, with a flicker of light and a trail of white 
smoke above it. Danny found himself on the 
platform more alone and bewildered than ever in 
his life before. 


333 


CHAPTER XXXII 


And if the soul grows wiser toward evening, 
the sorrow will grow wiser too that the soul has 
fashioned for itself in the morning. 

— Maeterlinck. 

The evening world was like the inside of some 
fine old seashell. Alexander Marr and Victor 
Stetson were walking slowly back and forth in 
the bishop’s garden. Somehow, at that time of 
day, the garden seemed at one with the space of 
quiet sky just overhead, and to look with a kind 
of ripe patience and humor upon the color 
riot in the west and the sympathetic excite- 
ment in the east. The gnarled trees made things 
over into stained glass every way one turned. 
The frogs, no respecters of silence and the 
“prayer hour,” gave voice to their perpetual 
pleasantries in great, water-soaked croaks, or 
took arrowy flight to the cool, brown depths of 
the pond with an artful kicking of trim, green 
legs. They made magic circles sweep away from 
a central splash which boasted that it was easy 
334 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


enough to take a hand in this much-prated mat- 
ter of landscape. The two men, both so tall and 
so slight, moved with the deliberation that tells 
of a to-morrow allowed to take care of itself. 
The greater elasticity and strength of the 
older man was evident, and here in the garden, 
seemed just. It was as if the old trees, the old 
garden, the old man, all the old world, had asked 
the young man in as a guest, that before he went 
on his way he might have a frank while with the 
things that are tough of heart through long liv- 
ing — things that have almost finished a long, 
hard fight and are allowed by grace to stay 
a while and look on with earned patience and no 
little entertainment. When they walked toward 
the west they faced the sunset, and the blurred, 
stubborn towers of the Catholic church, and over 
all the fine tracery of trees. When they walked 
toward the east they faced the same tracery of 
trees, a tracery that is never the same, and 
through and beyond, the white-capped old moun- 
tains with their tattered veils of dark cedar, 
which some big hand seemed to have raked down 
here and there for spite, laying bare the tough 
ribs of rock. 


335 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Marr,” said Victor, “I want to talk with you 
about John Warren.” 

“He has never married, Stetson; you knew 
that?” 

“Yes, I knew; Aunt Agatha wrote me. I 
never had the courage, — or the wickedness, to 
tell Anne. I am sure she is happier just now in 
not knowing. Besides, you see, it wasn’t to be 
for very long. A sick man is selfish, do what he 
will, and begrudges even what he does not pos- 
sess. But while Anne was ill she told me the 
truth about a good many things ; poor little girl ! 
It is right that she should care for him, 
Marr. His work is better and better. I think 
he has been finding himself, too. They were 
made for each other; it was so, and I knew it 
from the first time they met. You know when a 
woman really loves a fellow, the more faults, the 
more she loves. The little girl has had a pretty 
disheartening experience thus far, but she has 
made a plucky fight.” 

“She has changed very much,” said Marr, 
gently. “Is Warren worth her? I never quite 
liked him.” 

“He’s worth her if she loves him, Marr,” said 

336 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Victor, stubbornly. “Women’s lives are made not 
so much of fact as of what they want fact to be. 
Besides, you saw the worst side of him. I want 
you to promise me that you will never say a word 
against him to Anne; that you will give them 
their chance.” 

“An old man can do no more than mind his own 
business, Stetson,” he smiled in his grim-gentle 
way and put his hand on the young man’s bent 
shoulder. 

“It won’t matter what you do in the long run. 
They’ll find each other now without help and 
in spite of interference.” 

“The law pauses before women,” grumbled 
Marr. 

“The last year has been a sort of purgatory 
for the girl, but she has made the most of it, of 
herself, and of me. We like to ease up responsi- 
bility by saying, ‘she is better for it,’ but enough 
is enough. All her life she has been giving, 
and getting migbty little in return. The world 
is a stupid sponge and it gets fat off women like 
Anne.” 

“She has a man’s brain in her head,” said 


337 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Marr, clasping his hands behind him and gazing 
into the pond. 

“Yes, but a woman’s heart in her breast, and 
that mixes things.” 

“Women are mostly in a mess these days,” 
said the old man, gently, tossing a pebble into 
the water and peering at the rings through his 
glasses. 

“Not much,” laughed Victor, watching him. 
“Blind happiness is a thin dream and they are 
shaking it off, but they’ll find something else to 
put on. Femininity will never be unadorned. To 
stay blind through a lifetime looks something 
like stupidity, and Anne is not stupid.” 

“No, God help her, she is not.” 

Victor laughed and threw aside his cigarette. 
“You are hedging, Marr. You know as well as 
I do that God can't help her. He could put her 
here, perhaps, but she has got to help herself.” 

Both men turned suddenly and waited, watch- 
ing Anne as she came through the gate and 
down the path under the old trees. She was 
dressed in thin white stuff, and the glow in the 
west drew a line like fire all around her and 
turned the white to bluest shadow. There was 
338 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


a new kind of freshness on her face, the sort 
of purity that comes after the furnace, the 
purity that is gained and not born. 

“So you thought to run away from me?’ ? She 
looked from one to the other. “I am not so 
easily defeated. When I am not invited and wish 
to go, I simply argue that it is an oversight and 
go at once to save my host the pain of embarrass- 
ment! Besides,” she looked about and smiled, 
“where is the sense of two men in a garden with- 
out meV' 

“Perhaps we came to hear ourselves talk about 
you,” suggested Marr. 

“You don’t frighten me in the least. The 
place is too benign for slander: you couldn’t.” 

“We didn’t,” admitted Victor, and putting his 
arm across the girl’s shoulder, they strolled along 
three abreast. 

A cheery face that glowed in the dusk, a “face 
that had made up its mind” and was finally 
framed in the white linen of a Sister of Mercy, 
peered through the twilight over the sanatorium 
wall. One of her invalids out in the night air! 
The face grew anxious, then something like a 
memory crossed the old blue eyes, and the Sister 
339 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


mercifully turned away and let her invalid and 
the night air be. What did it really matter? 
Gently her fingers stole over the rosary and she 
slipped into the chapel, remembering many 
things. 


340 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


June’s twice June since she breathed it with me. 

— Browning. 

SIX MONTHS LATER. 

An editor sat in his office high up in one of the 
New York city hives, glanced at his watch and 
re-read a note before him. The note was signed 
“Anne Preston Stetson,” and assured him that 
she would be very glad to come in and talk 
things over at two o’clock on Thursday after- 
noon, as he had suggested. Alexander Marr had 
been mediator in all matters of business about 
her book, so, thus far, her contact with the office 
had been impersonal. To have wedged a book, 
and a “first book” at that, through the swarm of 
mad, money-hungry aspirants with pockets and 
hands bursting with popular works , was, for one 
moment at least, impressive. The fact that a 
strong book is by a woman will never cease to salt 
and pepper the situation so long as woman con- 
tinues to be the inductor of fiction into the mat- 
341 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


ter of every-day fact. Is she young, or is she 
oldish ? Is she a “lady,” or does she wear droop- 
ing tidies and autumn-leaf hats? These things 
are unimportant? Yes, they are, as far as the 
book is concerned, — that stands or falls accord- 
ing to its own particular spine, — but, that being 
established, curiosity has merely had a tonic. 

“Mrs. Stetson?” The editor rose abruptly 
and the blond boy in buttons, who had deigned 
to show her in, evaporated according to rule. 
The editorial eyes took up the editorial broom 
and swept. As the solemn moment proceeded, 
Anne remembered having read somewhere that 
“the essential thing in politics is to look grave,” 
and in spite of herself she laughed. The edito- 
rial palm thought in its sleeve it would like to 
shake hands, but the editor compromised by of- 
fering a comfortable chair. 

“I am Mrs. Stetson,” she confessed with a 
smile of reserved amusement; she was something 
of an adept with the broom herself. She settled 
herself comfortably by his desk in the proffered 
chair, — the chair that is either electrocution or a 
throne, according to the editorial temperature. 
She clasped her hands loosely on the little shelf 
34,2 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


that pulls out by a china knob at the corner of 
the editorial desk, bridging the gap between au- 
thority and hope and making mortal conversa- 
tion possible. She fixed her eyes on her soft 
mouse-colored gloves and thought things over: 
how commonplace “moments” are when they do 
arrive ! 

The editor was saying things she used to 
dream about as a goal: now, she had worked 
so hard, and waited so long, it all seemed like 
wages rather than glitter. But, after all, some- 
thing must be said to the editor, who was really 
going out of his way to tell her what he thought. 
And he did seem to see what she had intended. 
“Thank you,” she smiled remotely; “it is very 
good and comforting to be so understood.” 

“Now,” he continued briskly, “the book must 
be illustrated. It deserves to be !” 

Anne raised her brows. “That sometimes 
turns out to be anything but a just reward,” she 
remarked. 

The remark produced the editorial smile. 
“And,” he continued, “we hope you will agree 
with us that Warren is just the man to do the 
work.” 


343 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Warren!” she gasped; “John Warren?” 
One hand in its soft glove caught at the edge of 
the shelf. 

Evidently the editorial broom had stirred a bit 
of dust on the calm imperturbability of this 
young person after all. He glanced shrewdly at 
her face. “You — like his work?” 

Every beat of the girl’s heart made circles 
of her thoughts that all came back to John; of 
his work she could not think. After what seemed 
to her an age of silence she heard herself say, 
“Oh, yes, his work is very beautiful. I had not 
hoped for anything so good.” 

“Warren is in the art editor’s office this after- 
noon, talking over some work, and if it interests 
you t[> meet him — in fact, I asked him to drop 
in heie on his way out.” 

“Did you — tell him why ?” she asked as quietly 
as she could. 

“Oh, no,” said the editor. “I merely spoke of 
a new book. I’ll just ring and ask him if he 
won’t come right up.” 

Anne took herself sternly in hand. To meet 
him after all this time; after all that had hap- 
pened; in a stuffy, dusty office; in the presence 
344 * 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


of the editorial broom ; with prosaic chimneys, 
and telegraph poles, and a tinker mending a wa- 
ter-spout all looking in through the window — it 
was ridiculous ; if she could only remember that 
it was ridiculous perhaps she could get through 
it. She knew she would be able to read at a 
glance if Catherine and John were happy, 
would know if life were dealing gently with 
them. And all the time the editor was talking 
to her about important matters; she must listen 
and talk too. When she heard John’s step com- 
ing down the hall she wanted to fly. He stopped 
to talk with some one on the way and at the 
sound of his voice she turned her chair so that 
the strong light fell on the top of her broad hat 
and put her face completely in shadow. Looking 
into the light and not expecting her, he would 
not be able to see. 

John came in .with his hat cocked on the back 
of his head and an air of brisk, business-like 
thoroughness about him that overwhelmed her. 
The last time she had seen him in Marr’s house 
he had been a boy and very much upset. Here 
was a man, self-possessed, as well groomed, 
scrubbed and shining as ever, but with a some- 

345 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


thing frank and robust, something of the real, of 
the master-workman about him that was in itself 
assurance and commanded respect. As his eyes 
fell on her he pulled off his hat ; it was simply 
the impersonal act of a man that respects any 
woman. For one moment he peered into the 
strong light, then gave it up and turned to the 
editor and shook his hand with a boyishness that 
was delightful. 

“Warren,” said the editor, “I want to present 
you to Mrs. Stetson. Hers is the book I men- 
tioned.” 

For a space of time John stood without turn- 
ing, bracing himself. Anne saw, and found 
her courage. Then he turned with a will and the 
big strong hands closed about the mouse-colored 
gloves till they were lost to sight. 

The editorial properties nearly received to 
their list a new member in the garb of an aston- 
ished whistle, but dignity compromised with a 
laugh, and the precedents reposed secure. “I 
did not guess I was restoring old friends.” 

The two stood absorbing each other, each self- 
unconscious in his anxiety to read the other’s 
face. 


346 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Yes,” Anne heard herself say, “I knew Mr. 
Warren when I was quite a little girl.” 

There was an editorial chuckle in the air. 
Really, it was not bad, during a day’s work, to 
bring two people together who were still young 
enough to be flurried. 

And Anne’s heart began singing its old 
thoughtless tune: no stopping to think about a 
real heart-tune! She told herself that while 
much was all wrong a great deal was all right. 
For John had come back to her through her 
work; without any responsibility on their part 
they had been decreed to work together. Surely 
no one might begrudge her that, not even 
Catherine. Radiantly she smiled through the 
window on the amazed tinker. But long years 
of mending leaky spouts and gazing in upstairs 
windows had taught him that amazement and 
“far to fall” make a bad combination, and he 
was a wary tinker — so no harm was done! Be- 
sides, it was a beautiful smile, a smile to do a 
tinker good and set him thinking. 

The little office was full of words that sounded 
to the two like “speech half-asleep and song 
half-awake!” “Costume, character, type, pe- 
347 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


riod,” such words they were; the sort of talk 
that illustrators listen to with fine patience, then 
straightway forget or do with as they please. 
Then they went away together, down in the ele- 
vator and out into the street. At the corner John 
stopped and looked down under the wide hat- 
brim, just as he had used to do. 

“Well?” he asked. “Pronounce sentence, Nan- 
cy. Am I to go back to banishment? — which I 
won’t — or am I really resurrected?” 

“Come with me,” she said recklessly. “I want 
some tea and you never would have tea in your 
studio.” 

John smiled oddly. 

Again she remembered Catherine and won- 
dered bitterly if she had converted John’s or- 
derly place into a pink tea-room. His work did 
not smack of picture hats and musical numbers, 
but time would tell. 

Then came a car-ride that was accomplished 
but not realized, and at last she put the key in 
the door of her apartment. 

John looked about the charming room with 
its two big windows that took in the spring- 


348 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


dressed tree-tops of Washington Square, then 
his eyes traveled appreciatively over the room. 

“The things were Victor’s mother’s,” she said 
gently. 

“And Victor?” 

“Victor died last October.” 

“Will you tell me about it?” 

“There is not very much that can be told. 
He made a hard fight of it, but it was no use. 
And he was very happy in the end. Doctor 
Marr came out and was with us in October. Vic- 
tor was the best man I have ever known, John.” 

“Yes, he was,” said John, sincerely. 

Anne put aside her hat and coat. She had let 
her maid go out for the afternoon, so she went 
to the kitchen to fill the kettle. 

“I have such a good girl, John,” she smiled 
as she lighted the lamp. “She darns and mends, 
cooks and thinks for me. It is a beautiful way 
to live, but I am getting wretchedly lazy and 
spoiled.” 

“The book doesn’t sound like laziness,” he 
smiled. 

She wanted to ask him about Catherine, she 


349 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


even felt she must. Sentence after sentence was 
framed but would not come forth. The after- 
noon wore dizzily away and still he had not men- 
tioned his wife to her. What did it mean? She 
was beginning to feel hurt and asked herself 
bitterly if he had only come back into her life 
to humiliate her all over again. 


350 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


Leave old crimes to grow young and virtuous-like 

I’ the sun and air ; so time treats ugly deeds : 

They take the natural blessing of all change. 

— Browning. 

About four o’clock of the same afternoon Marr 
started for Anne’s to get his usual cup of tea 
and to hear about her interview with the pub- 
lisher. It was a delicious spring day, and he 
loitered across Washington Square, giving the 
passer-by a glimpse of a face that tells of liking 
life after a long time of it. The birds were north 
again, and there was no end of house-warming 
going on in the new leaves. One young fellow 
was singing fit to split his throat, and Marr 
stopped and peered into the tree to watch him. 
He pulled off his hat and laughed at the strut- 
ting airs of the feathered mite. “A tenor 
straight from Italy, eh?” he commented, and 
so far forgot his dignity as to whistle back, and 
there ensued a rather lopsided fugue. 

“Humph!” and a woman’s voice penetrated 

351 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


the music in the old man’s ears. Agatha Tyler 
stood before him, and by her side were a nurse 
and a baby carriage. 

Marr bowed with as much of the old cynicism 
as the spring in the air would permit him to col- 
lect on short notice. 

“I trust, Madam, that you are as well as you 
look?” 

“Tut, tut, Doctor Marr,” she laughed good- 
humoredly. “I am very well indeed, but I know 
as well as you do that I look like the very Old 
Nick. There seems so little time to keep one’s 
self in order.” She glanced at the baby carriage. 
“And you? You were acting with delightful 
dignity, I must say, when I came along and 
caught you. No doubt you thought you were a 
boy again. I wonder what the bird thought!” 

Marr was amazed. The same woman, the usual 
acrid words, but in some way the sting and wrin- 
kles had been smoothed out of the voice and a 
healthy humor twinkled in the gray eyes. He 
felt decidedly sheepish. 

“Have you been adopting a family, Agatha ?” 
he asked, blinking down inquisitively through 
his glasses at the rosy, puckered little face that 
352 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


rested, healthy baby-wise, not because it wanted 
to, but because it must, on the silk and lace 
pillow. 

“He is Catherine’s son,” she said, proudly 
drawing the woolly blanket up to the round, soft 
bump that would one day be a good American 
chin. She glanced up at Marr and laughed. 
“You remember my niece Catherine, I am sure. 
I had my way, Doctor. She threw Warren over 
and married a sensible man with money in his 
pockets and enterprise in his head, and within a 
month of the tears over Warren ! The rebound, 
you know. She is ridiculously happy!” She 
finished with a glance of the old defiance, but it 
burned itself out in a moment. 

“You sent me cards,” smiled Marr. 

While they were talking, Young America had, 
by means of the skilful wriggling that unfortu- 
nately dies out with babyhood, wormed his fists 
out of the hateful woolly prison, and fastened 
with a mighty hold on Marr’s walking-stick. 

“Do be careful,” said the woman, anxiously. 

Marr gazed at her with amused patience. “I’m 
no fool,” he laughed. “Before I took up lungs 
I looked after bushels of babies that would have 
353 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


put you in a panic. Babies have more sense than 
you women think.” 

“Indeed !” and the smart old eyes shone. “We 
live just over there,” she moved a hand toward a 
row of brownstone houses. “Catherine’s day is 
Wednesday, but for my part I think tea is quite 
as good on Tuesdays. To-day is Tuesday ; won’t 
you come in? We were just going.” 

“I was on my way to tea,” said Marr, feeling 
suddenly like a turncoat. Agatha Tyler had 
treated Anne shamefully, and he must stand by 
the little girl. 

“I am sorry,” she said, and to his bewilder- 
ment she seemed to mean it. 

“You are really very good,” he answered, feel- 
ing pleased in spite of himself and watching the 
old face shrewdly for a sign of flaw in the appar- 
ent sincerity. Suddenly his conscience drove 
him to his duty toward Anne. 

“I was going in for tea with your — niece!” 
He shut his mouth tight. 

“My — niece?” she echoed vaguely, then slowly 
light dawned. “Is she in town again?” The 
question was put more quietly than Marr had 
dared hope. 


354 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Oh, yes,” he said, trying cheerfully to assume 
that nothing but peace ever reigned in the social 
spheres. “She has been in town several months 
finishing her novel. It has been accepted and 
comes out this autumn.” He hoped that she 
might have a streak of the lion-hunter to ap- 
peal to. 

“She’s just the sort to write a good story,” 
admitted Mrs. Tyler, with a dry smile. 

“She lives over there, just across the square 
from you,” he said easily, swinging his stick. 

“She still winds you around her finger?” 

“Oh, yes,” and the confession was no less than 
a boast. “Agatha,” he added gently, “I wonder 
if you have any idea how much she did to help 
Victor in his fight for life? You got my letter?” 

She nodded her head for answer. 

“Wouldn’t it be sort of — civil, Agatha, to 
drop in to see her some day ?” 

“Alexander,” she said, looking him square in 
the eyes, “I am no doubt on my way to be an 
angel, but I have not arrived! You ask more 
than mortal woman can do. Is she still so shock- 
ingly good-looking?” 

“I should say so,” he laughed. 

355 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


She shook her head in comical despair. “I 
shall always detest her. Now, Alexander, go on 
to your tea : I am not going to quarrel with you. 
But take my advice and aon’t try drawing two 
sides of a city square together; the geography 
of the place suits me very well as it is. Come in 
next Tuesday at four. Ours is the house with 
the white shades. Catherine will be very glad to 
see you.” With a nod that had lost much of its 
crisp style, but had gained something human, 
she walked away with one hand resting on the 
baby carriage. 

Marr presented himself at Anne’s door with 
his head in a whirl. “Mrs. Stetson is in, I’m 
sure, sir. I just came in,” said the maid, as she 
straightened her cap. “She won’t mind you, sir. 
Go right in.” 

He walked in briskly with no thought of find- 
ing any one but Anne. When John Warren rose 
like a young giant from his chair by the tea- 
table the man of science was put, for a moment, 
to confusion. But in a flash his talk with Victor 
in the bishop’s garden came back to him and he 
remembered his promise. With a tightening of 


356 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


his loyal old heart, he held out his hand cor- 
dially to John. 

“Well, I declare, Warren, I seem to be meet- 
ing the entire clan this afternoon. I have just 
been talking, — you might say chatting, — with 
your would-have-been aunt-in-law. She lives 
just across the square. It may interest you to 
hear that I have actually been asked to tea!” 
He looked very superior and lighted his cigar 
with a great deal of manner. In his anxiety to 
keep his word to Victor and to put John at his 
ease he did not notice how Anne went white and 
bent her head very low while she made his tea. 

“That was a close shave,” laughed John. 
“Did she seem to regret me?” He could not 
make out the change in Marr, but was willing 
enough to accept it without questioning. 

“I think,” and Marr let his eyes gleam humor- 
ously into John’s, “I have never known her to be 
so cheerful! Possibly her sadness has mellowed 
her,” he hazarded. He was finding Warren more 
likable than he had thought. “Make the tea 
strong, Anne. I am rather excited.” 

Anne nodded, but did not risk her voice. She 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


was thinking how quietly the frail little tea-cups 
compel us to take a piece of big news. Her hand 
shook as she gave Marr his saucer. 

“Did they treat you well at the publisher’s ?” 
the old man asked in a lowered voice, as his 
shrewd eyes took in the shaking hand. “I hope 
you spoke right up to ’em and gave ’em to under- 
stand that you were no speculation? You have 
no idea, Warren, how it annoys me that this child 
persists in working herself to death. I declare, 
she has given me an awful winter of it. Ever 
since October, and I don’t know how much longer, 
she has been poring over this book. And, by 
George! it is a good book, and I shall go after 
any one who says it isn’t. But the whole thing 
is nonsense!” 

“I met John around there,” she smiled up at 
Marr. She loved him best when he got into a 
tantrum about her work. “They had selected 
him to illustrate the story, and he did not know 
it was mine until he came in. Odd, wasn’t it?” 

“Well, I’ll be damned!” ruminated the doctor, 
absently. He had been wondering how in the 
world it had happened. It seemed to him he 


358 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


could hear Victor saying, “I told you, Marr, that 
they would find each other.” He had loved Vic- 
tor, and it appeared to him just then that justice 
was a trifle cruel. 

Anne gazed at Marr in amazement, but he 
seemed unconscious of his profanity, and John 
decided with some amusement that the old gen- 
tleman had been spending the afternoon at his 
club. After a little light talk about nothing 
in particular, John rose to go. He held Anne’s 
hand tight and asked earnestly, “May I come in 
now and then to talk over the drawings ?” 

“Do, do!” interjected Marr, with absent- 
minded enthusiasm. With a gasp he remembered 
himself. “Anne, child, I beg your pardon.” He 
flushed, then laughed awkwardly. “That comes 
of making an old man so at home.” 

She put her hand on his sleeve and turned to 
John. “Come as often as you like. I shall be* 
glad to see you.” The two men shook hands 
vigorously and John departed. 

The evenings were still sharp and Anne called 
the maid to build a little fire in the grate, then 
she handed Marr the evening paper. 


$ 59 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Now you are to amuse yourself a while and I 
shall get off this heavy dress and we’ll be more 
comfortable. You will stay to dinner?” 

“Of course, of course,” and Marr settled him- 
self in a big chair and watched the maid build 
the fire. 

Anne smiled to herself as she left the room. 
He was decidedly upset about something, and 
she guessed at half. She came back in a house- 
dress of soft white stuff and drew a low chair 
close to the fresh spluttering fire and watched 
the color through her fingers. Marr sat lost in 
a cloud of smoke, with the paper limp and un- 
read over his knees. “Why did you not tell me 
that they — that Catherine and John had never 
married?” She looked around at him over her 
shoulder. 

“It was none of my business;” and Marr hid 
in the smoke. 

“You’ll spoil your dinner, smoking. There is 
chicken to-night, too,” she remarked, and turned 
her eyes back to the fire. He puffed away in 
stubborn silence. “Well, one good thing,” she 
said at last, “the story will be beautifully illus- 
trated.” 


360 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


The maid announced dinner and Marr made 
no effort at conversation till after he had at- 
tended to the carving. “I suppose,” he re- 
marked, with a piece of white meat poised on his 
fork, “it is just that baby that has taken the 
temper out of Agatha Tyler !” 

Anne opened her eyes wide. “What baby?” 
she asked. 

“Why, Catherine’s baby,” retorted Marr, with 
satirical patience. 

“Is Catherine married?” gasped Anne. “I’m 
so glad.” 

Several amused answers flickered about the old 
man’s mouth, but he salted his potatoes before he 
spoke. “Well,” he said slowly, “I’m glad, too ! 
He seemed a fine baby!” Then these good 
friends gave in to a laugh, the kind of laugh 
that leaves the eyes wet. 


361 


CHAPTER XXXV 


For as a rhyme unto its rhyme-twin goes, 

I send a rose unto a rose. 

— Sidney Lanier. 
ONE DAY’S LETTERS. 


Dear Nancy: 

More than likely I do not deserve it, but be 
your old generous self and send me around your 
copy of your manuscript to read, and send it no 
later than this very morning, because I am all 
impatience. It may be a long time before they 
send it to me from the house, you know. They 
never give the picture man any more time than 
he needs. I have been blinking at the light all 
morning, Nancy, like a fellow who has been kept 
down cellar long. It is wonderful to have found 
you again like this. You will never know how 
glad I am, how good it is to know where you 
are. Faithfully, 

John. 

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A GINGHAM ROSE 


Dear John : 

Of course you do not deserve it, and for just 
that reason here is the manuscript, and “no later 
than this very morning !” And, John, one glance 
at the manuscript will tell you better than I can 
how much I want to know what you think. 

As ever, Anne. 

Dear Nancy : 

You can guess what I felt when my eyes took 
in the title-page of your book. In a flash we 
were all back there again, in the old studio with 
the fiddlers and the masks, and you, bless you, in 
the gingham dress. Dear “kid,” was there thorn 
enough in that freak of boyish j ealousy and self- 
ishness to bring forth this full-blown rose-tree 
of a book ? It wasn’t so hopeless, after all, then, 
was it ? For the book is good, mighty good, and 
I like good work as well as the next. It is all the 
same game, is it not, whether you work in words 
or lines? And never since the “trade” began 
were such pictures sprouting in an illustrator’s 
head as in mine right now. I am fairly breaking 
out with ideas that I must talk over with you at 
once. I have been sitting up here the livelong 
day with the book and my pipe, for all the world 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


as if there were no frantic art editors! I find 
that there is a symphony concert to-night, and 
unless you convince me that you have something 
very much better to do I shall come by for you 
about eight. You’ll need to be mighty convinc- 
ing. Yours indeed, 

John. 

Anne wrote seven notes before one was finally 
sent. Here are the first and the last : 

THE FIRST. 

John Dear: 

I am perfectly thankful that you like the 
book : I was afraid to open your note ! I’ve noth- 
ing in the world to do to-night and the concert 
is an inspiration. Thank you for thinking of it. 

As ever, Nancy. 

THE SEVENTH. 

Dear John : 

I am disconsolate, of course, but I have an 
engagement to-night that it would hardly be 
fair to break. Let’s see — this is Wednesday, 
isn’t it? Won’t you come in on Sunday after- 
noon for tea ? As ever, 

Anne. 


364 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


That evening, after a very lonesome dinner — 
Marr had failed to put in his appearance — the 
maid brought in a long lavender box. Inside 
was a note and a big, long-stemmed, thorny rose. 

I didn’t think it of you! All right, I shall 
try to take my medicine like a man. I hope you 
are good and sorry before Sunday comes. Dear 
kid, what is the use ? Patiently yours, 

John. 

Anne got the scissors and snipped off all the 
little thorns along the long stem, then she took 
the rose and went to the big settle by the fire- 
place. She got back in the corner as far as possi- 
ble ; she wanted to be more alone than alone could 
be. She put her head down on a cushion and 
shut her eyes and sniffed at the big sweet rose* 
“It will do him good,” she sighed. 


365 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


Fireflies already sparkling under the bridge, — 

And it is not yet dark ! 

—Japanese Poem. 

Three o’clock Saturday afternoon found Anne, 
the penitent, at John’s studio door, her hand, 
from habit, groping for the knocker he had 
counted among his especially choice “finds.” But 
the knocker was gone, had been torn off roughly, 
and the nail-holes were splintered like jagged 
scars. Puzzled, she tapped on the panel: a 
heavy, telltale silence ensued. She tapped again, 
more lightly: two words, the weaker of which 
was “oh,” were muttered in the studio. She 
smiled and waited. Having taken his time and 
hearing no one depart, John sang out, “No 
models wanted! Try in number forty; there’s 
a beginner in there !” Anne laughed to herself ; 
this was better fun than she had hoped for, and 
evidently John had few visitors, or he’d not dare 
talk so. She tapped boldly. 

366 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“Come in,” sighed John, giving it up. She 
opened the door just enough to be heard without 
raising her voice : “It’s I, — Anne.” 

“Holy Moses !” groaned John, fairly tumbling 
to the door, stuffing his pipe into his pocket, 
apologizing, and smoothing his hair. He gazed 
down on her unbelievingly, while half a dozen 
emotions struggled over his face, anxiety rather 
having the best of it. 

She drew back into the hall. “You see,” she 
laughed, feeling embarrassed for some reason or 
other, “I did get ‘good and sorry before Sunday,’ 
and here I am. Am I forgiven?” 

“You forgiven !” echoed John, with a sincerity 
that was disconcerting. “Nancy,” he hesitated, 
“I’ve a model, and a pretty fierce one, I must 
admit. But come on inside and I’ll send her 
away.” 

“But if you are working I’ll not come in, of 
course,” and she turned resolutely away from 
the door. 

“Come in,” repeated John, determination hav- 
ing beaten anxiety finally. After one glance at 
him she came in without further argument. She 
stood looking about utterly bewildered. The 

367 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


studio she remembered as orderly and charming 
was dismantled ; the door into his room, which he 
had always left open because of the effect of the 
fireplace and the small window, was shut fast; 
the restful spaces of simple wall were littered 
with shelves and cupboards, and the Japanese 
print that used to hang above Catherine’s pic- 
ture was unframed and hung upside down by one 
pin against a shelf. The model she recog- 
nized as a girl who used to pose at Chase’s, and 
she nodded at her curiously. She stood like 
a dejected exotic bird in a drooping skirt of 
faded pink tulle and a tawdry, be jeweled bodice 
of satin. The long cotton stockings were a raw 
pink, grotesquely loose and wrinkled, and her 
feet looked like stumps in the satin sandals. She 
seemed embarrassed and frisked about with piti- 
ful coquetry and assurance. 

John caught up a piece of “background,” and, 
dumping a heap of Jugends and Gil Bias off 
a chair, dusted it and offered it to Anne. “Not 
a very good place, this, for togs, Nancy,” he 
smiled, with a glance at her dress. Then he 
turned and observed the frisking tulle and cotton 
with a twinkle in his eye. 

368 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“I’ll not need you any more to-day,” he said. 
She disappeared behind a screen in a corner to 
dress and emerged so soon that Anne felt sure 
the cotton stockings had decided to walk home! 
But the tulle had given way to a decorous, nay, 
tragic, sweep of black, and the wide hat and 
ornate veil obscured the silly face and made the 
eyes as restless and bright as a suspicious, peer- 
ing squirrel’s. She took her pay, nodded to 
Anne smartly, and swished away. 

“I remember her very well,” smiled Anne. 
“She used to sit in a nightgown between poses 
and talk to us wide-eyed youngsters about the 
dangers of posing!” 

“I noticed that you seemed to upset her some,” 
smiled John. 

Anne looked about the room again and finished 
with a careful scrutiny of John himself. 

“Have you moved, John?” she asked at last, 
feeling more and more bewildered. 

“Yes,” said John, stubbornly; “I moved the 
day I saw you last, before you went away. I 
kept the old number just for — sentiment!” He 
laughed bitterly. 

Her mouth trembled a little and she looked 

369 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


away at the window. With a little cry she got to 
her feet and walked over to the scarlet geranium 
that bloomed brighter than ever on the ledge. 
“How do you do?” she nodded quaintly. “I 
think you are the only person here that I have 
ever met before!” She bent down and touched 
the pungent blossom with her cheek. Then she 
turned and looked John straight in the eyes. It 
was the first time they had really looked at each 
other since their paths had crossed again. The 
masks were off : the whole place and both the 
young faces told their stories of that fiercest of 
revolutions, the war that goes to the finish be- 
tween every man and himself. When the silence 
became unbearable and the tension too tight 
Anne turned back to the window. 

“You like this drawing, Nancy?” John asked 
in a painfully steady voice. 

She went quietly back to her chair and looked 
at the drawing. It was a study of some theatrical 
incident and done with no aim other than the 
thing itself — no technic, no tone. 

“John,” she said gently, “you have no idea 
how I have watched for your work all these 
months. I knew from the very first that some- 
370 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


thing had happened. I thought it was Cathe- 
rine. I did not know until you and Marr were 
joking over your tea about Mrs. Tyler that you 
were not married.” 

“No one told you?” and John looked at her 
in blank amazement. 

“No one,” she said. “And I am glad they 
did not.” 

“I lost myself that night after I left you, 
Nancy, and came in here and tore the place down 
about my own head. Then I wrote Catherine a 
letter. She never got it, fortunately. Her aunt 
intercepted it, read it and returned it to me with 
some choice comment that I no doubt deserved. 
A letter from Catherine crossed mine to her. It 
accomplished the same thing. She threw me 
over. Her aunt is an excellent manager.” He 
smiled and stood with folded arms, smoking his 
pipe and watching Anne doggedly through the 
smoke. 

Anne’s eyes absorbed the drawing and for a 
while she sat thinking. 

“Your work used to terrify me, John. It had 
something about it for a while, a heavy kind of 
terrible strength that smothered me just as the 
371 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


desert out there smothered me. It seemed to me 
it must break of its own weight. We have both 
paid pretty dear.” 

“I don’t mind for myself,” he said thickly. 
“I needed a beating and got it; but it kills me 
to think what you have gone through. I was so 
blind !” 

She shook her head and smiled. “No, you 
were not ; at least, if you were, you were not the 
only one. Perhaps the blindness is a sort of epi- 
demic, John, like the measles, and good for 
growing youngsters. I had to learn the price of 
playing heroics, you see. You can’t go to the 
theater for nothing, whether you go in at the 
stage door or by the box-office. But one thing I 
am thankful for, John; Victor never guessed 
what I felt. I thought sometimes I’d shriek out 
about it, do what I would. Do you remember 
the day I talked to you, scolded you, John, 
about what would happen to you if you married 
Catherine?” 

John did not think more than a glance neces- 
sary for answer. 

“Well, I simply had to take my own medicine. 


372 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


I would be wise and set myself up for a prophet, 
and had to be taken down and taught my place. 
It’s terrible out in that dead country. You can’t 
imagine the silence. And everybody laughs to 
keep up his courage, while he plays at cheating 
death. And the worst of it for me was that they 
all believed in me so, and sometimes I hated them 
so it nearly killed me. I had to live a lie. Well, 
I did it, and he never knew. It was the best I 
could do.” Her low voice told its part of the 
torture between the lines. 

Suddenly John bent over her and gathered her 
hands in his and pressed them against his face. 
“You have been saved for me,” he whispered. 
“Why, God knows, Anne, — ■” he began, and 
stood straight before her, giving himself no 
quarter. 

“John !” she got to her feet and looked at him 
imploringly. “Don’t tell me about — anything !” 
she whispered. “Don’t! I’d rather not know.” 
She smiled at him unsteadily. “You see, I am 
just a grown up little girl, after all, and I can’t 
let go of my fairy tales. I’d rather be credulous 
about you except just as you are to me.” 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“After all,” sighed John, pulling himself to- 
gether firmly, “there isn’t anything to tell that 
matters to you and me.” 

She walked over to the sketch and stood think- 
ing a moment. “Do you know,” she turned to 
him frankly, “I don’t think things really scar 
us, unless we love ugliness for itself and hold 
fast to it. Why, to-day, as I came along the 
street, in the sunlight, I felt as young as ever so 
long ago, and fearless, and — transparent — 
almost. I wanted to run ; I was as good as new — 
maybe better! Do you understand me?” She 
looked at him searchingly. 

John put his hands about her face and looked 
down into her eyes. “You could go to the bottom 
of hell, dear, and come back clean-hearted.” 

“And with a bit or two of news ?” she laughed. 

John went to the window and threw it wide. 
The spring air rushed about the dusty room like 
cool water through a parched throat. He leaned 
far out, taking in great breaths. Anne came 
and stood with her arms on the ledge and her 
eyes on the geranium between them. 

“Well, Nancy, we have the whole summer be- 
fore us; did you know it?” 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


“I guessed as much,” she said solemnly. 

“I was a spendthrift with the last one we were 
given, but I shall be a miser with this one.” 

Anne watched the thin trail of smoke that 
wafted back into the room from his pipe. “I 
shall not begin work till fall; then I am going to 
tackle a new book,” she said. 

“That’s what you are,” said John, firmly. 

The place was still for a while. “Johnny,” 
said Anne, quietly, “do you remember the last 
time I was up here, and watching the smoke from 
that factory over there made me dizzy ; and when 
I said I’d like to break into white smoke, you said 
something about how I’d have to go through the 
coal-hole and the furnace first?” 

“That is one of the things,” said John, grimly, 
“that I have tried so hard to forget and remem- 
bered all the better for the trying. There is the 
devil in trying ; did you know it, kid ?” 

“I never heard it put in quite such a classic 
way before,” she admitted. “Are you going to 
be in town this summer?” she asked. 

“Are you ?” he answered. 

“Mostly,” she said. 

“Mostly,” he answered. “We’ll have all those 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


Sunday afternoons over again, with some — mod- 
ern improvements,” he laughed, leaning toward 
her. She put out her hand and held the scarlet 
flowers away from his sleeve. “You’ll break your 
tried friend,” she said earnestly. “It is getting 
late, John. I must go home.” 

“Yes ; I think you must,” admitted John, fold- 
ing his arms tight and looking down at her. 

She went rather precipitately, stumbling over 
nothing in particular several times on her way to 
the door. She walked home : a street-car was not 
to be thought of; narrow and crowded places 
they are, especially in the springtime! She 
looked up at the sky, bright and pink in the eve- 
ning glow, and because of the dazzling sunlight 
saw none of the cobwebs that certainly hang 
over the city from roof to roof, from spire to 
spire. The blessed season of springtime, the bet- 
ter, the deeper, no doubt, if a little late in com- 
ing! 


376 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


This is a dream — but no dream, let us hope. 

That years and days, the summers and the springs, 
Follow each other with unwavering powers. 

— Browning. 

The summer fairly flew by, reflecting all its 
wonders in Anne’s blue eyes. There was proof- 
reading to do and the drawings to be made ; they 
were done somehow, too, and thoroughly. The 
lost Sundays of that other summer, that verily 
seemed a thousand years ago, had been more than 
reclaimed and of improvements there seemed no 
end. 

The breeze blew in so pleasantly across the 
tree-tops of the square, there was really no sense 
in going out of town for more than a day or two 
now and then. Anne and John had gone to all 
sorts of places, tried every direction and called 
the experiments “going to Rome.” Indeed, it 
was just that ! One day away in a boat, down the 
meandering little Bronx, with its secretive rushes 
and absurd beating-about-the-bush way of going 

377 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


along, with lunch and laziness in the shade of 
some low-voiced willow that had, of course, grown 
there just to edify them on their way to “Rome.” 

Perhaps there was some whimsical, far-seeing 
talk about the character of trees as they drifted 
along, odd scraps of curious truth that dare find 
a voice when one really lets go and drifts down- 
stream of a sun-soaked summer afternoon. Or 
maybe a Sunday at Rockaway or Coney, to give 
every possible road to Rome a trial. They 
watched the old-faced children, the mad, dizzy, 
work-tired, and freedom-drunk mob, dropping 
their hard-earned pennies into harlot-decked slot 
machines, just for the fun of seeing what an 
under-fed body weighs; more pennies for beer 
in a dance-hall, then furious dancing to get rid 
of the energy of hysterics. Everywhere they 
went, — except to the park. Something un- 
spoken, but understood, there was about going 
to the park. It was to come when the summer 
had gone ; was to be put off to the very last mo- 
ment, then snatched away from the oncoming 
winter some Indian summer day. And autumn 
was here, was slipping by ; it would no longer be 
denied. 


378 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


One Saturday afternoon John dropped in for 
tea, and though he had done the same thing 
every Saturday, there was something mightily 
significant in the air. He was very much pre- 
occupied and Anne talked with a brilliancy that 
would have fatally dazzled a man who did not 
already know that she couldn’t help it. When 
he rose to go he stood a moment, then said un- 
evenly: “I think there may be very few more 
good Sundays — bright ones, I mean. Shall we 
go up to the park for supper to-morrow ?” 

“If you like,” she answered, and the color flew 
to her cheeks, but her eyes were clear as day. 

While she was dressing the next afternoon she 
remembered that nothing had been said about a 
meeting place. Often she went by for him, be- 
cause thus they could more certainly avoid any 
one who might be coming in to see her. In the 
end she decided that she would risk it and go for 
him, just as she had that other Sunday — that 
awful day, when she had dared speak her mind 
about his getting married! She pinned her hat 
on tight; it was a half cloudy and very breezy 
day. She had not allowed herself to think of 
rain. When she got downstairs to the glass 
379 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


storm-door, there was John on the other side of 
the glass, just coming in. 

“Were you running away from me?” he asked 
reproachfully. 

“Not according to my best understanding,” 
she laughed. 

“But, dear,” the word was some way vastly im- 
portant, “we might have missed each other !” 

“But — dear,” she echoed gently, “we didn’t!” 

“It’s raining,” announced John, and for once 
in a way a remark about the weather was in 
earnest. 

“The park will keep,” she smiled. 

They stood a moment watching the big drops 
as they turned the pavements into mirrors, then 
they went back, and up in the elevator. These 
prosaic things all may mean so much. 

They talked and read aloud, and made tea, and 
thought — more than anything else they thought, 
but after the manner of the initiated the thinking 
was all aloud. 

And how it did rain ! But the rainy pavements 
and skies of autumn work a wonder of comfort 
indoors. As the dusk settled down the whole 
dream of the whole summer was swept aside in a 
380 


A GINGHAM ROSE 


better reality ; even the rather stilted if true con- 
versation of a certain lady elephant-ear was not 
noticeably regretted. 

When it had grown too dark to read Anne put 
the book back on the shelf, and when she turned 
there was John, standing with outstretched arms. 

After what was, really, a very long time, he 
said: “Dear, I have never half told you how 
proud I am of you, of your success.” It was a 
foolish speech, but it was the best he could 
think of. 

“Don’t waste time being proud, John,” she 
whispered. 


THE END 


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A VIVID WESTERN STORY OF LOVE 
AND POLITICS 


THE I 3th DISTRICT 

By BRAND WHITLOCK 


This is a story of high order. By its scope and strength 
it deserves to be spoken of as a novel— and that word has 
been very much abused by hanging it to any old thing. It 
is a wonderfully good and interesting account of the workings 
of politics from before the primaries on through election, 
with a splendid love story also woven into it. 

One would think for instance, that it would be impossible 
to give an account of a “ primary ” and keep it interesting ; 
it is natural to suppose a writer would become entangled with 
the dull routine of it all, but he does not, he makes it inter- 
esting. He shows the tricks, the heat, the passion, the 
tumult ; the weariness and stubborness of a dead lock. The 
descriptions of society life in the book are equally good. 

i2mo. Price, $1.50 


The Bobbs -Merrill Company, Indianapolis 


A SPLENDIDLY VITAL NARRATION 


THE MASTER OF 
APPLEBY 

A romance of the Carolina* 

By FRANCIS LYNDE 


Viewed either as a delightful entertainment or as 
a skilful and finished piece of literary art, this is 
easily one of the most important of recent novels. 
One can not read a dozen pages without realizing 
that the author has mastered the magic of the story- 
teller’s art. After the dozen pages the author is 
forgotten in his creations. 

It is rare, indeed, that characters in fiction live 
and love, suffer and fight, grasp and renounce in 
so human a fashion as in this splendidly vital nar- 
ration. 

With pictures by T. de Thulstrup 
izmo, cloth. Price, $1.50 


The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 



WHAT BOOK BY A NEW AUTHOR HAS 
RECEIVED SUCH PRAISE? 

WHAT MANNER 
OF MAN 

By EDNA KENTON 


The novel, “ What Manner of Man,” is a study of what 
is commonly known as the “artistic temperament,” and a 
novel so far above the average level of merit as to cause even 
tired reviewers to sit up and take hope once more. 

— New York Timti. 

It will certainly stand out as one of the most notable novels 
of the year. — Philadelphia Press. 

It does not need a trained critical faculty to recognize that 
this book is something more than clever. — N. Y. Commercial. 

Note should be made of the literary charm and value of the 
work, and likewise of its eminently readable quality, considered 
purely as a romance. — Philadelphia Record. 

Literary distinction is stamped on every page, and the author’s 
insight into the human heart gives promise of a brilliant future. 

— Chicago Record-Herald. 

The whole book is full of dramatic force. The author is 
an unusual thinker and observer, and has a rare gift for creative 
literature. — Philadelphia Evening Telegraph. 

“ What Manner of Man ” is a study and a creation. 

— N. Y. World. 

l2mo. Cloth, Gilt Top, $1.50 


The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 


WITHOUT A DULL PAGE 


THE READER 
MAGAZINE 


Fiction 

The best writers contribute to this magazine stories 
that entertain. During this year there will appear 
some of the best work of these well-known authors : 

HAROLD MacGRATH EMERSON HOUGH 
ALICE McGOWAN OCTAVE THANET 
BRAND WHITLOCK GEORGE HORTON 
GERALDINE BONNER FREDERIC S. ISHAM 
FRANCIS LYNDE KENNETH BROWN 
MIRIAM MICHELSON ANNA.KATHERINE GREEN 

Criticism 

The Reader Magazine is a recognized authority 
in the world of letters. Each ~~nth it contains a 
chronicle of literature and the drama, illustrated with 
portraits of those who are achieving things worth 
while. Its essays and reviews are authoritative and 
readable, and are being constantly quoted as the 
index of sound opinion. 

An illustrated monthly magazine 
worth reading and worth keeping 
Price, $3.00 per year 


The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 




“ABOUNDS IN BITS OF EPIGRAM 
WORTH QUOTING-” 



By ALICE WOODS 


** An idyl, dreamy, harmonious, poetic.*' — St, Paul Globe. 

“ The dialogue is keen-edged and keeps you entertained.” 


— Literary Digest, 


“ She can write ; and her love story is pretty and well 
told.” — New York Sun. 

“ Edges is one of those perfectly charming little stories of 
modern people : and the entire picture is so delightful that it 
seems the most natural thing in the world.** 


— Philadelphia Public Ledger. 


“ Filled with exquisite flashes of genuine sentiment and 
fine feeling.” — Louisville Times. 

With illustrations by the author 
Square 12 mo. Price, $1.50 

The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 



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